Data
Greenhouse gas emissions per 100 grams of protein
Greenhouse gas emissions from producing the amount of each of about 30 foods that holds 100 grams of protein, from land-use change and the farm to the shop, in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent: global means from Poore and Nemecek (2018), as published by Our World in Data.
Latest value
49.9kg CO₂e/100 g protein
World (global mean of the studies reviewed), 2010. Version Science 360, 987–992 (2018); OWID grapher series updated 2019-10-08.
Greenhouse gas emissions per 100 grams of protein (kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per 100 grams of protein)
Show as a table
| Period | Food product | Value (kg CO₂e/100 g protein) | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Apples | 14.3 | final |
| 2010 | Bananas | 9.6 | final |
| 2010 | Beef (beef herd) | 49.9 | final |
| 2010 | Beef (dairy herd) | 16.9 | final |
| 2010 | Berries & Grapes | 15.3 | final |
| 2010 | Brassicas | 4.6 | final |
| 2010 | Cassava | 14.7 | final |
| 2010 | Cheese | 10.8 | final |
| 2010 | Citrus Fruit | 6.5 | final |
| 2010 | Coffee | 35.7 | final |
| 2010 | Dark Chocolate | 93.3 | final |
| 2010 | Eggs | 4.2 | final |
| 2010 | Fish (farmed) | 6.0 | final |
| 2010 | Grains | 2.7 | final |
| 2010 | Groundnuts | 1.2 | final |
| 2010 | Lamb & Mutton | 19.9 | final |
| 2010 | Maize | 1.8 | final |
| 2010 | Milk | 9.5 | final |
| 2010 | Nuts | 0.3 | final |
| 2010 | Oatmeal | 1.9 | final |
| 2010 | Onions & Leeks | 3.8 | final |
| 2010 | Other Pulses | 0.8 | final |
| 2010 | Peas | 0.4 | final |
| 2010 | Pig Meat | 7.6 | final |
| 2010 | Potatoes | 2.7 | final |
| 2010 | Poultry Meat | 5.7 | final |
| 2010 | Prawns (farmed) | 18.2 | final |
| 2010 | Rice | 6.3 | final |
| 2010 | Root Vegetables | 4.3 | final |
| 2010 | Tofu | 2.0 | final |
| 2010 | Tomatoes | 19.0 | final |
| 2010 | Wheat & Rye | 1.3 | final |
Where it comes from
- Producer
- Joseph Poore (University of Oxford) and Thomas Nemecek (Agroscope); published in Science; series processed by Our World in Data · Environmental footprints of food products (Poore & Nemecek 2018)
- Version
- Science 360, 987–992 (2018); OWID grapher series updated 2019-10-08
- Fetched
- 2026-10-04 (automatically), 825 bytes
- Fingerprint
- sha256 475d7903fe1e012bf369cfaee4fca9905dea6e62aa9025ba126ead7219d7585e · Last-Modified Mon, 05 Oct 2026 01:11:20 GMT
- Copies
- No Wayback copy recorded yet.
- Cite the producer
- Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987–992. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216 (erratum: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw9908). Poore and Nemecek (2018) – processed by Our World in Data.
What was done to it
Read OWID's grapher CSV of Poore and Nemecek (2018) greenhouse gas emissions per 100 grams of protein (column ghg_emissions_per_100g_protein__poore__and__nemecek__2018): 32 food products, all for the year 2010. Values are published as printed, with no conversion; the food names are OWID's.
Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/food/poore_nemecek_2018.py · code sha256 357d2dccb0239ece… · inputs 475d7903fe1e…
Some of these per-protein values are Our World in Data's own conversions of the per-kilogram values with FAO/INFOODS food composition factors (registry note), labelled as processed by Our World in Data.
Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/food/poore_nemecek_2018.py · code sha256 357d2dccb0239ece… · inputs 475d7903fe1e…
What it covers
- Geography
- World (global mean of the studies reviewed)
- Basis
- Global mean of the life-cycle studies in Poore and Nemecek's meta-analysis (about 570 studies, 38,700 farms, 119 countries, median reference year 2010), from land-use change and farm to retail, including packaging and losses. Greenhouse gases weighted by their warming over 100 years (GWP100); the IPCC report the factors come from is not stated in the files used. Impacts vary widely between producers of the same food. Some per-protein values are Our World in Data's conversions of the per-kilogram values with FAO/INFOODS food composition factors.
- Unit
- kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per 100 grams of protein (kg CO₂e/100 g protein)