Let’s imagine that ‘caring about the planet’ is a large pan of soup bubbling away on your green-energy-powered Aga. The ingredients for your own special blend may include biodiversity, responsible consumption, recycling and a multitude of other deliciously principled goodies.
While your concoction won’t be the same as the next eco chef’s, the fact that you’re making this metaphorical soup at all is something to be applauded.
However, if there’s any meat in your recipe, there’s a school of thought that says it can’t possibly count as an environmental soup at all.
‘The truth is, if you eat meat, you’re contributing to one of the worst cases of environmental destruction,’ declares the Mercy For Animals website, who point to UN figures stating that greenhouse gases caused by raising animals to eat account for around 15 per cent of all human-induced emissions globally.

The LA-based non-profit organisation isn’t plucking nonsensical numbers from thin air. The BBC adds some similarly alarming statistics that beef production results in a whopping 50kg of greenhouse gases – including methane which, according to the UN, is 80 times more harmful than CO2 for 20 years after it is released – for every 100 gms of edible protein.
Livestock farming has been called ‘catastrophic’ for our planet. As well as contributing to global emissions, it is also believed to be responsible for a devastating 91 per cent of Amazon deforestation. That’s why the UN argued in a recent report that we must move to a ‘plant-heavy’ food system to ‘combat biodiversity loss’.
‘If we change towards a plant- based diet, we could save up to eight billion tonnes of C02 every single year,’ insists environmentalist Greta Thunberg, who went vegan at the age of 10. ‘We could feed ourselves on much less land, and nature could recover.’
An Oxford University study, which was published in the journal Science, claimed that adopting a meat and dairy-free diet was ‘probably the single biggest way’ to reduce our impact on the Earth. The research showed that the farmland used to produce meat and dairy could be reduced by 75 per cent – an area equivalent to America, China, Europe and Australia combined – and still feed the world.
Researchers insisted that huge reductions in meat eating, including consuming 90 per cent less beef, is ‘essential’ to avoid dangerous climate change, though currently only one to three per cent of the world is vegan.

Even the wiliest of politicians may struggle to convincingly beef up their argument that eating meat is good for the planet (although ending the livelihoods of thousands of livestock farmers might be a reasonable place to start). So, the fact remains: every time someone pops a chicken nugget, burger or a bite of lamb shawarma into their mouth, it comes with a hefty environmental price tag.
‘If we change towards a plant- based diet, we could save up to eight billion tonnes of C02 every single year,’ insists environmentalist Greta Thunberg, who reportedly went vegan at the age of 10. ‘We could feed ourselves on much less land, and nature could recover.’
She also raises the ethical cost of eating animals. ‘What about their thoughts and feelings?’ she asks. ‘Some animals plan for the future, forge friendships that last for decades. They play, they help each other. They show signs of what we call empathy.’

Vegan actress Maggie Q, star of Mission: Impossible and Rush Hour, says being a vegan is the only way forward ‘I can’t tell anyone else what to do, but I don’t eat animals – that is my daily solution,’ she says. ‘As a vegan I save 1,100 gallons of water a day. It takes 440 gallons of water to produce a pound of eggs, 1,000 gallons to produce a gallon of milk, 900 gallons to produce a pound of cheese, and 2,500 to produce beef. If you’re talking about the sustainability message, you cannot leave out the animal message.’
A Meaty Argument
But, switching sides, does a diet that sometimes features chicken and steak automatically disqualify you as an environmentalist in the eyes of many. Plenty say not. Need proof? Try this: ‘I’m an environmentalist, and I eat meat,’ confesses Emily Chan, Senior Sustainability and Features Editor, British Vogue. Bjørn Lomborg, USA Today, argues: ‘Don’t let vegetarian environmentalists shame you for eating meat. Science is on your side.’ Even Vegan.com is open-minded on the issue, insisting: ‘You can so be a meat-eating environmentalist.’ Of course, it’s unlikely that anyone who has ‘Vegan.com’ on their business card is pro-meat. The point the writer was making is that there are different levels of meat consumption.
You could, for example, be a vegan who consumes a single cheeseburger a year. If this were the case, we would argue you’re clearly not a vegan, but the Vegan.com writer says it would be clearly ‘absurd to claim that one burger has any significant impact on the environment.’

Mr Lomborg – the controversial former director of Denmark’s Environmental Assessment Institute (he was found guilty by the Danish government of ‘scientific dishonesty’ in 2003 and has been hitting the headlines with his outspoken views ever since), alludes to activist scaremongering in his USA Today article. He claims that: ‘A systematic peer-review of studies of going vegetarian shows that a non-meat diet will likely reduce an individual’s emissions by the equivalent of nearly 1,200 lbs carbon dioxide. For the average person in the industrialised world, that means an emissions cut of just 4.3 per cent.’
And while Vogue’s Emily Chan accepts that eating meat and being an ardent planet lover may seem hypocritical, she explains that – as with many things – it’s complicated.
The issue, she argues, shouldn’t be about shaming people for what they choose to eat. Instead, she advocates for ‘systemic changes that need to happen when i t comes to food production: addressing food waste, shifting to regenerative agriculture, reducing methane emissions from livestock, and stopping forests being cut down for fields and pastures.’
Eco Meat-O-Meter
If you care about the environment but also want to eat meat, it’s clearly not a conundrum you face alone. The answer, perhaps, is to find your place on the ‘eco meat-o-meter’.
There is no eco meat-o-meter – just like there’s no environmental soup. Were such a scale to exist, however, it would show you the planetary impact of every bit of meat you ever ate.
One study reported that creating 1kg of protein from beef requires 18 times more land, ten times more water and ten times more pesticides than generating 1kg of protein from kidney beans
Luckily, there’s lots of research already out there that explains how to weigh up the environmental damage your meat consumption is causing. All you have to do is find the balance point that works for you.
Eating meat more ethically isn’t difficult. Start by looking at the meat you are eating. There’s a league table of environmental friendliness that paints a pretty clear picture of the good meats vs the bad.

The top offender is beef. One study reported that creating 1kg of protein from beef requires 18 times more land, ten times more water and ten times more pesticides than generating 1kg of protein from kidney beans. And that’s before you get onto the copious amounts of potent methane gas produced by cows.
Methane is responsible for 25 per cent of the global warming we’re experiencing because, due to its structure, it traps more heat in the atmosphere per molecule than carbon dioxide. Cutting methane emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 could help us meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
Which Meat is Worst?
In comparison, chicken has a six times less detrimental impact on the environment, while lamb – another top methane emitter – settles in as the second-worst after beef.
So switching out that 8oz rib eye for a chicken fillet means you’re making an eco-choice even though you’ r e still eating meat. And introducing a meatless Monday each week would save the same emissions over 12 months as driving 700 kms.
Even portion size matters. The foodprint.org website, which – as its name suggests – takes a long hard look at the carbon footprint of your food, says that smaller portions of pasture-raised meat are the way to go. ‘These animals spend their time eating vegetation, unconfined and are therefore able to express their natural behaviours,’ it notes. ‘Animals raised in an industrial system are kept in barns, cages and lots and fed a grain- based feed. These confined systems are inhumane and have disastrous effects on soil, water and climate.’
Choosing local will positively affect the total carbon footprint of your meat, too.

Or maybe you could consider lab meat? Actually, perhaps not yet. A recent study by researchers at the University of California found that meat grown from animal cells by men in white coats in a lab could have a ‘global warming potential’ four to 25 times greater than retail beef because of the energy needed, and greenhouse gases emitted, during the production cycle. Laboratory meat is one to watch, though, as this should improve with time.
Faking It To Make It
For the purest conscience of all, the best way to eat meat is to fake it. In other words, to be that person who turns to a veggie burger whenever hunger strikes. Some of today’s best are almost as good as the real thing, as plant proteins have a much smaller climate, water, and land impact than regular meats.
Ultimately, the answer to whether you can actually be a meat-eating environmentalist is all down to you. Despite what some experts may say, it really isn’t a black-and-white issue.
Let’s say you’re single-handedly helping your neighbourhood to meet every one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and that you only wear homemade clothes spun from foraged bedroom fluff.
If you do all that, and more, is it right that anyone can suggest that an occasional love of pepperoni pizzas or that one cheeseburger per year renders your Environmentalist of the Year application inadmissible?
Of course, there has to be a limit. Announcing that you’re an eco- friendly flexitarian is fine up to a point, but ordering a slice of foie gras or indulging in a bowl of shark fin soup ‘only the once’ is always going to be an impossible trick to shrug off.
The truth is that as well as cutting down on red meat and dairy, a climate-friendly diet should also include minimising waste and trying to choose fruit and vegetables that are in season.
And critics who routinely insist that only vegans can call themselves environmentalists need to make sure their lifestyle supports that ideology. After all just one transatlantic return flight emits the same amount of CO2 as being vegan for two years. As Vegan.com says: ‘You better say that person can’t own a car, buy imported tomatoes, and needs to keep their house heated below 55 degrees in the winter.’ And so far only Greta can claim that.