Meat & Plant-Based: Plant-Based Meals vs CO₂ Saved (Hot Air Balloons)
See how your meat & plant-based habit scales when comparing plant-based meals to co₂ saved (hot air balloons). What's the true cost of your meal? Calculate the resources used for meat, or see how many animals, land, and water you save by eating plant-based.
Size My Meat & Plant-Based
Your Habit Scale
| Time Period | Equivalent in CO₂ Saved (Hot Air Balloons) |
|---|---|
| 1 Year | 91.2 balloons |
| 5 Years | 456.1 balloons |
| 25 Years | 2,280.7 balloons |
How It's Calculated
Calculations are based on the resources saved by replacing one 200g (≈ 7 oz) meal of beef meal.
- Your input: 5 Plant-Based Meals per week.
- This equals 260 meals per year.
- Each meal requires 40 kg (≈ 88.185 lbs) of CO₂-equivalent emissions.
- The total CO₂ saved is divided by 114 kg (≈ 251.327 lbs) (the estimated CO₂ emissions from one hot air balloon flight).
Sources: USDA, Water Footprint Network, Poore & Nemecek (2018). See the 'Science Behind It' section for full details.
Why It's Important
Choosing plant-based meals over beef saves approximately 91.2 co₂ (hot air balloons) over a year. This highlights the significant environmental savings of this dietary choice.
Why is this important? Shifting consumption away from resource-intensive foods like beef has a profound positive impact on the planet. Visualizing these savings connects personal habits to major global issues like water scarcity, deforestation, and climate change, underscoring the power of your plate.
Do you need help with your habit? See our list of international helplines and resources.
The Science Behind It
Your dietary choices have a significant impact on the planet. This calculator helps visualize the environmental and ethical impact of consuming beef, pork, and chicken by showing the resources saved when these meals are replaced with plant-based alternatives. The data is based on life-cycle assessments of food production.
1. Animal Lives Spared
The "Animals Saved" metric is calculated based on the average retail meat yield per animal. For example, one cow produces approximately 2,140 individual 100g meals. By choosing a plant-based option, you directly reduce the demand that drives these numbers.
2. Water Footprint
Agriculture is a major consumer of global freshwater resources, and animal agriculture is particularly thirsty. The water footprint includes water for drinking, cleaning, and, most significantly, irrigating the crops grown to feed the animals. A single 100g beef meal has a water footprint of over 1,500 liters.
3. Land Use
Livestock farming is the world's largest user of land resources, with grazing and feed crop production occupying a vast percentage of the Earth's habitable land. This is a leading cause of deforestation and biodiversity loss. Beef production is especially land-intensive, requiring over 32 square meters per 100g meal.
4. Greenhouse Gas Emissions (CO₂-eq)
The food system is responsible for about a quarter of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Ruminant animals like cattle produce large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, through digestion. The entire supply chain, from feed production to processing, contributes to the carbon footprint of meat.