Food Carbon Footprint Calculator
Estimate the yearly greenhouse-gas emissions of what you eat — beef, lamb, pork, chicken, fish, cheese, milk, eggs, rice, bread and vegetables — in kg CO₂e from the Poore & Nemecek global food dataset.
How it works
Yearly emissions = Σ (weekly kg of food × kg CO₂e per kg × 52.18) · factors (global median, farm to retail): beef (beef herd) 99.48, lamb 39.72, cheese 23.88, fish (farmed) 13.63, pork 12.31, poultry 9.87, eggs 4.67, rice 4.45, milk 3.15, wheat 1.57, other vegetables 0.53 kg CO₂e/kg
The emission factors come from the largest meta-analysis of food systems, Poore & Nemecek (2018, Science), covering about 38,700 farms in 119 countries and published by Our World in Data. They include land-use change, farming, animal feed, processing, transport, packaging and retail, so they show the full supply chain up to the shop. What you eat matters far more than where it comes from: transport is usually under 10% of a food’s footprint, while beef emits about ten times more than chicken per kilogram. Real values vary widely between farms; the figures are global medians.
Worked example
Each week: 0.3 kg beef, 0.1 kg lamb, 0.3 kg pork, 0.5 kg chicken, 0.2 kg farmed fish, 0.15 kg cheese, 1.5 kg milk, 0.3 kg eggs, 0.4 kg rice, 0.8 kg bread and 3 kg vegetables. Beef alone is 0.3 × 99.48 × 52.18 = 1,557 kg CO₂e a year; the total is 3,105 kg CO₂e (about 3.1 t), 92% of it from animal foods. Swapping the beef for chicken would save 1,403 kg.
Sources: Poore, J. & Nemecek, T. (2018) Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers, Science 360, 987–992 · Our World in Data — Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product
Frequently asked questions
Which foods have the highest carbon footprint?
Beef from beef herds (about 99 kg CO₂e per kg), lamb (40), cheese (24), dark chocolate and coffee are at the top. Pulses, nuts, root vegetables and most fruit are below 2 kg CO₂e per kg.
Does eating local reduce my food footprint?
Usually only a little. Transport is typically less than 10% of a food’s emissions; changing what you eat — especially less beef and lamb — has a much larger effect.
What does CO₂e mean?
Carbon dioxide equivalent: methane and nitrous oxide from farming are converted to the amount of CO₂ with the same warming effect over 100 years, so all gases can be added together.
How big is a typical diet’s footprint?
Roughly 1.5–3 tonnes CO₂e per person per year in high-income countries, depending mostly on how much red meat and dairy is eaten.
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This calculator is for educational purposes. Double-check important results before acting on them.