The Vegan Footprint

Our carbon footprint is a very complex iceberg.  There are the obvious contributors like speeding along the 405 parking lot in a Suburban, and then there are the not so obvious like the pesticide truck in the right lane that hasn’t moved for 5 minutes.  After really digging in, I found that my footprint is very small compared to the average.  And it turned out that it’s not because I drive a Prius, it’s because I’m vegan.
It’s hard to get too detailed because the products we consume have massive supply chain tentacles.  However, there’s info on general categories and how much of each of those categories is contributable to getting food to our gullet.  For instance, when looking at the following categories, we see that food makes up 21% of an average footprint.

1.    Goods and Services:  64% overall, 15% food

2.    Personal Transportation: 20% overall, 3% food

3.    Home Energy: 16% overall, 3% food

So, trips to the grocery store comprise 3% and storing in the fridge and freezer and then briefly in the skillet comprise 3% of an average carbon footprint.  Notice that the only category that comprises an overall slice larger than the food footprint is the catch-all Goods and Services category.  This is the category that contains the massive supply chain.
Now, what can we do about reducing our footprint?  I usually get around 50 mpg in my Prius while the US average for light cars is around 35 mpg.  Since the auto footprint is approximately proportional to the amount of gas burned, switching to a Prius would save on average 30% of your transportation footprint, or 6% overall.  But surprisingly, switching from a conventional diet to a vegan diet would reduce the goods and services portion of your food footprint by around 94%, or 14% overall (see graph below).  This is significantly greater than just changing up your car.

To break down vegan savings, let’s look at why other diets have large carbon footprints.  Amongst many other factors, here are 4 that increase a carbon footprint:

1.    Clearing of Land:  Burning that troublesome jungle is one of our greatest ecological threats.  An area close to the size of Germany is cleared each year, and the generated soot is well over a 1,000 times more potent than CO2.  This is because it leads directly to greenhouse warning by trapping heat.  In fact, this alone accounts for 60% of the melting ice core.

2.    Methane Emissions:  Methane from that livestock is up to 100 times more potent than CO2, depending on its age.

3.    Agriculture Additives:  Pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, and fertilizers are energy intensive to manufacture leading to direct CO2 emissions.

4.    Transportation:  Getting food to our market leads to ground level ozone which is about half as potent as CO2.  However, transportation is multiplied when livestock demands are factored in.

Carbon footprints grows exponentially the further removed the production is from our plate.  Since 70% of grain is used for livestock feed, the deforestation and agricultural additives used to grow this feed become significant.  In fact, nitrogen use to grow livestock feed in the Midwest is so abundant that much of the Gulf of Mexico is biologically dead due to runoff that flows down the Mississippi.
So the ultimate question is, are you greenie enough.  It’s easy to buy a fuel efficient car and become smug; you’re not really giving up anything.  If you really want to chip away at your carbon iceberg, don’t trade in the Mustang for a Prius, trade the jerk chicken for organic beans and rice.  You’ll reduce your carbon from 20 tons to 17.  And, if you want to reach for the green stars, trade in for the Prius and knock off another ton.