Moving your pet to a vegan diet could remove greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those produced by Saudi Arabia or Australia, a new study suggests.
The savings are a result of the billions of animals no longer raised for meat in pet food, which both release greenhouse gases themselves, and require intensive production that also contributes to climate change in many ways.
Numerous studies over the last 15 years have shown dogs and cats can lead healthy lives on nutritionally sound plant-based diets provided they are made to contain essential nutrients normally found in meat.
Researchers have now begun to quantify the environmental impact of pet diets and how that could change if they went vegan.
Professor Andrew Knight of Griffith University, Australia, estimates this would stop the slaughter of around seven billion livestock animals and billions more aquatic creatures.
It would also free up vast tracts of land that could be rewilded, allowing nature to recover and reduce pollution from animal faeces that often spills into rivers and lakes, further damaging ecosystems.
A 2018 estimate put the global dog population at 471 million, with the collective weight of all canines equal to that of all the remaining wild land mammals.
Vegan pet diets are usually formed from plants but they could in future also be made using yeast, fungi or seaweed, as some companies are using to develop meat alternatives for humans.
Extending strictly vegan diets to all humans could also create calorie savings that would feed everyone on Earth.
This is because for every 1kg of high-quality meat produced, 6kg of plant protein is needed – so if people and pets ate the plants direct, there would be more food for all.
‘This study shows environmental benefits when vegan diets are used to feed not just people, but dogs and cats as well,’ said Professor Knight.
‘However, to safeguard health it’s important that people feed only vegan pet food labelled as nutritionally complete, produced by reputable companies with good standards.’
He also stressed that the pet population and animal energy requirement data he used might underestimate the true environmental benefits of vegan diets and that he had to make some assumptions, so more research is required to make his findings more reliable.
The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.
MORE : Calling plant-based food ‘vegan’ makes fewer people choose it, says study
MORE : Ben & Jerry’s drops new (vegan) flavour
Get your need-to-know
latest news, feel-good stories, analysis and more
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
