Swap Half Your Meat and Dairy With Plant-Based Alternatives to Save the Forests

One of the great misconceptions about leading a more sustainable lifestyle is that it's all or nothing. Advocates for the planet often act with urgency—which makes sense given that we are witnessing the collapse of nature and such. But sometimes, that urgency can come across as "never fly again, go zero waste now, stop eating meat yesterday." And while some people may be compelled to do just that, others need baby steps.

And we're here to tell you this: Baby steps work! It doesn't have to be all or nothing; just reducing certain behaviors can be enough to move the needle.

A new study published in Nature Communications illustrates this well by revealing that substituting 50% of animal products (pork, chicken, beef, and milk) with plant-based food alternatives can "reduce global emissions from agriculture by 31%, save forests, and improve nutrition for millions of people."

The researchers, hailing from the University of Vermont (UVM), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Alliance of Bioversity International, and CIAT employed a global economic land use model to assess the food system-wide impacts of a global dietary shift towards these alternatives. "While beef replacement provides the largest impacts," the study notes, "substituting multiple products is synergistic."

They say that additional climate and biodiversity benefits could accrue from reforesting land no longer needed for livestock when meat and dairy are swapped for plant-based alternatives. This would more than double the climate benefits and halve future declines of ecosystem integrity by 2050. They note that the restored area "could contribute up to 25% of the estimated global land restoration needs under Target 2 of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by 2030."

“We’ll need much more than ‘Meatless Mondays’ to reduce the global GHG emissions driving climate change—and this study shows us a path forward,” said study co-author Eva Wollenberg from UVM. [Though Treehugger would never be dismissive of Meatless Mondays, for the record.] “Plant-based meats are not just a novel food product, but a critical opportunity for achieving food security and climate goals while also achieving health and biodiversity objectives worldwide.” 

The findings reveal that substituting 50% of meat and milk would substantially reduce the mounting impacts of food systems on the natural environment. By 2050, compared to 2020, the positive effects would include: 

• Global agricultural area declines by 12% instead of expanding. 
• The decline in areas of forest and other natural land is almost completely halted.
• Nitrogen inputs to cropland are nearly half of the projections.
• Water use declines by 10% instead of increasing.
• Without accounting for any carbon sequestration on spared land, GHG emissions could decline by 2.1 Gt CO2eq year-1 (31%) in 2050 (1.6 Gt CO2eq year-1 on average in 2020–2050).
• Undernourishment globally declines to 3.6%, as compared to 3.8% in the reference scenario (reducing the number of undernourished people by 31 million).

“Understanding the impacts of dietary shifts expands our options for reducing GHG emissions," said study lead author Marta Kozicka, a researcher from IIASA. “Shifting diets could also yield huge improvements for biodiversity.” 

For the work, the authors developed scenarios of dietary changes based on plant-based recipes for beef, pork, chicken, and milk. The recipes they used were nutritionally comparable to animal-based foods and realistic for the existing food manufacturing capabilities and globally available production ingredients. 

They note that the full environmental benefit of the diet swaps could be achieved if the spared agricultural land is restored through biodiversity-oriented afforestation. In the 50% scenario, the benefits from reduced land-use emissions could double as compared to a scenario without afforestation. The 50% scenario would reduce predicted declines in ecosystem integrity by more than half.

"Despite accounting for less than 20% of the global food energy supply, animal source foods (ASFs) are responsible for the majority of negative impacts on land use, water use, biodiversity, and greenhouse gas emissions in global food systems," the study notes.

"It is becoming clear that encouraging the adoption of low-ASF diets will be an important component in meeting climate change mitigation targets, achieving health and food security objectives worldwide, and keeping natural resource use within planetary boundaries."

So, let's go! If you need to start with small steps, add some mushrooms to your hamburger patty, use half oat milk/half cow milk in your coffee, and read more about how to become a reducetarian. The forests (and animals) will thank you.