UK Edition
Veganuary: why a flexitarian diet might be the right way to help the planet
Cutting down, rather than eliminating, meat and dairy, could provide a practical solution
There is a near consensus among climate scientists and policymakers that if we are to limit global warming, we need to trim our consumption of meat and dairy.
But whether we need to go all the way to veganism to save the planet is another question.
Meat’s impact
Meat and dairy are responsible for around 14 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, most of this in methane emissions from ruminants (cows and sheep).
A 2018 analysis in the journal Science suggests that meat and dairy almost always has a bigger carbon footprint than protein from plant sources.
But the general public has less of a grasp of the climate impact of meat compared to other polluting activities such as driving petrol cars, or producing power from coal.
And it’s not just the greenhouse gas emissions produced by meat that are problematic for the environment.
A study in the Lancet last year assessed food production on the metrics of greenhouse gas emissions, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from fertiliser use, water usage and biodiversity.
Its bottom line was that to cope with population growth and climate change by 2050, global consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes will have to double, and consumption of red meat will have to be reduced by more than 50 per cent.
Its sustainable diet allowed for one serving of meat a week, and one portion of dairy a day.
British cows: grass-fed, carbon sequestrating?
Food production and consumption is not one-size-fits-all for every country, and where and how your meat is produced has different impacts on the planet. British beef has around half the carbon footprint of the global average.
Some 75 per cent of the meat products we eat in the UK are from British animals, and much of our cattle are at least partly grass-fed.
That is potentially better for the environment; grazing livestock can help to sequester carbon.
As part of a rotational farming system, grazing livestock can ultimately replace chemical fertilisers and pesticides, a practice used by a growing number of farmers turning to regenerative agriculture.
But you can’t always know what you’re getting when you buy meat in the UK.
The UK imports more than a quarter of its meat, nearly half of that beef, mostly from the Republic of Ireland, but increasingly from further afield, including Brazil, where Amazon deforestation is being fuelled by agriculture.
British supermarkets and restaurants have also been found to supply meat that has been fed from imported crops linked to deforestation.
And intensive farming is growing in the UK, with the number of so-called mega farms increasing around 26 per cent since 2011.
Then there’s the question of space, of which higher welfare, grass-fed cattle in a regenerative system consumes more.
Some areas of the country are arguably suited to little else than grazing livestock. But in general, the UK needs to reclaim some of its land to grow trees and restore biodiversity if it is to meet its environmental goals.
Without cutting down meat consumption, that will be difficult. Henry Dimbleby is currently leading a Government-commissioned review into the UK’s national food strategy, which earlier this year called for free school meals for an additional 1.5 million children.
The second part of the review, out later this year, will focus on the climate change impacts of our food, especially meat. “It is clear that if we want to stay below 1.5C we are going to have to reduce our meat-eating,” he told the Telegraph.
Is veganism realistic?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body of experts which advises governments on the science, says a global switch to veganism would provide the biggest cut in emissions of all diets.
But a flexitarian diet, which includes more plant-based foods than most people currently consume, replacing a lot of meat and dairy, still has significant emissions savings.
And in reality, most experts also recognise that food and agriculture exist within a social and cultural context that can’t be quickly undone.
“You could you could argue that there is a role for livestock in maintaining some of the kind of cultural landscapes that we know and love,” says Dr Tara Garnett, a researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.
The Climate Change Committee are the Government’s statutory advisors on how we meet our goal to be net zero by 2050, taking into account what is politically, economically and socially practical.
They do recommend a significant cut in meat and dairy consumption over the next few decades - but not to zero.
Instead, they say we will need to see a 24 per cent reduction in meat consumption by 2035, and a 35 per cent cut by 2050.
Should we bother at all?
“Eating more plant based foods, and less meat and dairy will benefit the climate – even if you decide not to cut them out completely. Everyone can make a difference,” says Peter Smith, Professor of Soils and Global Change at the University of Aberdeen.
Cutting back, rather than eliminating, our meat intake would not necessarily entail a huge cultural shift, but rather a return to the way we used to eat.
Meat intake in the UK has increased rapidly in recent years, around nine per cent in the last decade alone, and is significantly higher than the global average.
A 2016 study found that if the rest of the world were to replicate the UK’s average diet, it would require 95 per cent of the world’s land for agriculture, compared to the 50 per cent today.
“I can't see a sustainable future that does not require the reduction in consumption of animal products in a country like the UK,” says Dr Garnett.
What do we eat instead?
What we replace meat with is important. Beef and lamb are by far the biggest contributors to emissions, and chicken and pork have a significantly lower carbon footprint.
But grain feed given to chicken and pigs are also linked to deforestation in the Amazon and in the UK takes up a significant amount of land that could be used more efficiently for food, or for rewilding.
“The potential to squeeze one end of the bubble in the protein space and to move the problem somewhere else is huge,” says Henry Dimbleby.
While there is a "trade-off", Dr Garnett says, in some fruit and vegetables grown in water-intensive conditions abroad, plant protein sources, such as peas, legumes and nuts, all have lower carbon footprints than even the most eco-friendly meat. That includes tofu, the majority of which comes from soy grown in Europe or China, rather than the Amazon.
What else can we do?
What we don’t eat is almost as important as what we do eat.
Food waste is responsible for around six per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and much of it comes from the household.
Minimising food waste by checking use-by dates or composting could be one of the best ways to lower the carbon footprint of our food intake.