Do you care about the environment? Want to make a difference? There are a few small things you can do to help! You don't need to adopt a vegan diet to make a change.
Facts!
- 18% of greenhouse gas emissions are released by the meat and dairy industry.
- Source: Caro, D., Davis, S.J., Bastianoni, S. and Caldeira, K., 2014. Global and regional trends in greenhouse gas emissions from livestock. Climatic change, 126(1-2), pp.203-216.
- Switching to a vegetarian diet cuts emissions by a third and swapping beef and lamb for pork and chicken can reduce a persons CO2 emissions by 560kg per year.
- Source: Wallström, E., Carlsson-Kanyama, A. and Börjesson, P., 2015. Environmental impact of dietary change: a systematic review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 91, pp.1-11.
- Eating less meat can reduce water use by a third.
- Source: Herrero, M., Havlík, P., Valin, H., Notenbaert, A., Rufino, M.C., Thornton, P.K., Blümmel, M., Weiss, F., Grace, D. and Obersteiner, M., 2013. Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(52), pp.20888-20893.
- A 100g beef burger is the equivalent to 4300l of water, which is approximately 2 months’ worth of showering.
- Sources: Pimentel, D., Berger, B., Filiberto, D., Newton, M., Wolfe, B., Karabinakis, E., Clark, S., Poon, E., Abbett, E. and Nandagopal, S., 2004. Water resources: agricultural and environmental issues. BioScience, 54(10), pp.909-918.
Kappel, K. and Grechenig, T., 2009, April. Show-me: water consumption at a glance to promote water conservation in the shower. In Proceedings of the 4th international conference on persuasive technology (p. 26). ACM
Mayer, P.W., DeOreo, W.B., Opitz, E.M., Kiefer, J.C., Davis, W.Y., Dziegielewski, B. and Nelson, J.O., 1999. Residential end uses of water.
- 25% of money spent on food in the UK is used to buy meat and fish.
This is £15.60 for the average family.
- Source: Busman, J., Diamond, L., Ryan, R., Jones, R. (2014). Family Spending, 2014 Edition. UK Office of National Statistics.
