Vegan diets are both beneficial to health, and can have a better environmental footprint than other diets. Image: Shutterstock
Switching to a vegan diet generates 46 per cent less CO2 and uses 33 per cent less land compared to Mediterranean diet
By Victoria Heath
Around 1.1 per cent of the world’s population is vegan, but it’s a number that is steadily on the rise. For example, in Germany, the number of vegans doubled between 2016 and 2020 to two per cent of the population, while a 2.4-fold increase between 2023 and 2025 has been recorded in the UK.
Health benefits are often cited as a reason to move to veganism: one study found that moving from a typical Western diet to a vegan one can lower the risk of premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases by an estimated 18 to 21 per cent.
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Another reason, scientists have revealed, to switching to a vegan diet is your ecological footprint. A new study, published in Frontiers in Nutrition, has shown that making the switch from a Mediterranean to a vegan diet generates 46 per cent less CO2 while using 33 per cent less land and seven per cent less water. In addition, it lowers other pollutants linked to global warming.
To come to their conclusions, researchers composed four week-long sets of nutritionally balanced daily menus, including breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, and dinner. Each diet was designed to deliver 2,000 kilocalories per day. Included in these menus was a Mediterranean diet, a pesco-vegetarian (fish and seafood, with no meat), an ovo-lacto-vegetarian (including eggs and dairy, but without meat) and a vegan diet.
They were then able to estimate the total ecological footprint of each menu, comprising a slew of key ecosystem impact indicators ranging from climate change and ozone depletion to water eutrophication and ecotoxicity.
Making the switch to some plant-based foods, even if your diet isn’t entirely vegan, can have a positive impact on the planet. Image: Shutterstock
The results showed that ‘cradle-to-home’ total greenhouse gas emissions dropped from 3.8 kilograms per day of CO2 equivalents for the omnivorous diet through 3.2 kilograms per day for the pesco-vegetarian diet and 2.6 kilograms per day for the ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet, to 2.1 kilograms per day for the vegan diet – a reduction by 46 per cent.
A similar pattern was found for water use – dropping by seven per cent from 10.2 cubic meters of water for the omnivorous diet to 9.5 cubic meters for the vegan diet – and for agricultural land occupation, falling by 33 per cent.
‘In our four-way comparison – omnivorous, pesco-vegetarian, ovo-lacto-vegetarian and vegan – the pattern was clear: the more plant foods, the smaller the ecological footprint. The pesco-vegetarian menu showed moderate gains, though fish production adds some environmental costs. Vegetarian diets also performed well, cutting carbon emissions by about 35 per cent,’ said the study’s author.
For those who wish to help the planet but are not prepared to give up animal-based foods entirely, the authors have an equally important message.
‘You don’t need to go fully vegan to make a difference. Even small steps toward a more plant-based diet reduce emissions and save resources. Every meal that includes more plants helps move us toward healthier people and a healthier planet,’ said corresponding author Noelia Rodriguez-Martín.
Dining and Cooking