Despite ‘Carbon Neutral’ Certifications, Beef Emissions Can Be Lower, but Never Low
Few foods take a higher toll on the planet than beef. Of all protein-rich foods, beef and lamb are generally highest in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, land use and water pollution per unit of protein.
At the same time, a growing number of certifications are entering the marketplace offering seemingly “sustainable” beef. A burning question for food companies and conscious consumers alike is: How can I purchase beef that’s truly “better” than average for the climate, animal welfare and other environmental concerns?
We looked at the research in our new report. Two things were abundantly clear: For one, there’s no such thing as climate-friendly beef, despite labels claiming otherwise. Secondly, some producers are making progress on animal welfare and certain environmental metrics. But while there are technical ways to reduce beef’s emissions, market constraints and the lack of credible, verifiable labels mean that sourcing genuinely lower-emissions beef remains out of reach for most buyers in the U.S. and Europe.
In short? The only way to guarantee you’re lowering the climate impact of your beef is to buy less of it.
Here, we answer common questions about beef’s environmental impacts and what food purchasers can realistically do — now and in the future — to reduce their climate footprint.
Why does beef have such a high environmental footprint compared to other meats?
For one, beef cattle take longer to mature (about 1.5-2 years) than other animals like pigs (5-6 months) and poultry (1.5-2 months). They also produce fewer offspring. As a result, they require significantly more feed — and land to grow it. More land per unit of meat means greater resource use and higher environmental impacts per gram of protein or kilogram of meat.
When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions specifically, the climate impact of beef comes from four main sources.
First are agricultural production emissions from actions like applying fertilizers, storing manure and using tractor fuels. This also includes emissions from the production of feed, fertilizers, pesticides and other materials used on the farm.
Ruminant animals such as cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats also have a unique digestive process that generates methane through enteric fermentation, primarily released through belching. This adds to their relatively high agricultural production emissions.
Then there are the emissions produced through beef processing, transportation and other post-farm activities. These are added to the production emissions to arrive at the total agricultural supply chain emissions.
Lastly, natural ecosystems like forests are often converted into pastures to raise cattle and farms to grow animal feed. The loss of these ecosystems’ carbon-storage potential is known as a carbon opportunity cost. The importance of accounting for the carbon opportunity cost of agricultural land use is increasingly recognized. When doing so, it typically accounts for the largest portion of beef’s overall climate impact.
The combination of agricultural supply chain emissions and carbon opportunity cost make up the total carbon costs of beef production.
Are certain types of cattle farming better for the climate than others?
Both location and farming methods can reduce the climate impacts of beef production, but they offer very limited opportunities at this time.
We’ll start with location.
Ruminant animals like cattle can graze on land that is too arid, rocky or hilly for crops or forests to grow, such as native grasslands. In these cases, well-managed grazing can offer significant benefits — such as providing livelihoods for millions of pastoralists and preserving native grasslands, which are important for carbon storage, water provision and more.
The problem is that only 37% of land used globally to graze or feed cattle and buffalo is unsuitable for crops. The rest occurs on land where, from a climate perspective, it would be far more efficient to grow food crops — or where forests or other natural ecosystems could be restored. As a result, producing beef in the U.S. and Europe requires more than 3 times as much cropland per kilogram of edible protein as producing milk, eggs, pork and chicken — and 7 times more than producing beans.
Meanwhile, global demand for beef continues to rise, making it unrealistic to limit its production only to land unsuitable for crops or forests. Cattle pasture expansion is the leading agricultural driver of recent tropical deforestation globally, which results in high emissions from land-use change.
Farming methods can also reduce beef’s emissions. Indeed, emissions per kilogram of beef production have been declining for decades as farmers find ways to raise cattle more efficiently, using less land and fewer resources. Continued efficiency gains, grazing optimization, improved disease management, feed additives, and changes in animal breeding and genetics can further reduce emissions.
However, while some of these emissions-reducing technologies already exist, adoption can be challenging due to costs and other constraints. Others will require technological breakthroughs before they are viable.
In a 2021 report, researchers estimated that combining all existing and breakthrough mitigation strategies could reduce American beef production’s emissions per kilogram by 48% by 2030. These reductions could be achieved through a combination of strategies, including reducing methane emissions from enteric fermentation; manufacturing feed additives with mostly solar energy; and increasing carbon sequestration by improving grazing practices, planting legumes on pastures, and developing varieties of feed crops with enhanced root growth and function. However, WRI’s new analysis finds that when the full impacts of land use are considered (measured using carbon opportunity cost), even implementing every existing and breakthrough mitigation technology would only reduce U.S. beef’s total carbon costs by 18%.
While still considerable, even this best-case scenario means that beef would still have higher emissions per gram of protein than most other foods.
What about organic, grass-fed or regeneratively produced beef?
Alternative systems like those that produce organic or grass-fed beef do offer some environmental and other benefits. They can improve animal welfare, reduce antibiotic use, and boost soil health and on-farm biodiversity. But from a climate perspective, they generally require more land than conventional agriculture, resulting in higher total carbon costs per gram of protein.
For example, previous WRI research found that the total carbon costs associated with grass-fed beef were more than double those of feedlot-finished beef, per kilogram. Organic beef’s total carbon costs were 28% greater than conventional beef.
Less research has explicitly studied regenerative grazing systems, which tend to focus on improving soil quality. But since many regenerative practices overlap with those in grass-fed or organic systems, the same emissions and land use concerns apply, though they can offer soil health and climate resilience benefits.
All of this said, practices used in conventional and alternative systems aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, and both systems have room to improve. In conventional systems, introducing rotational grazing practices prior to feedlot finishing could improve soil health and potentially help draw down carbon into soils. Grass-fed or organic operations could implement practices to improve productivity and reduce animal disease, which could lower land occupation and total carbon costs.
Where can companies and individuals buy beef produced with the best practices to reduce emissions?
Right now, it’s tricky.
Beef suppliers and purchasers often lack access to information on the production practices that most influence land occupation and emissions. For example, beef cattle typically live on multiple farms throughout their lives, with most emissions occurring when the calf is still nursing and grazing on pasture with its mother. Most large beef suppliers do not know where cattle were raised prior to the feedlot or slaughterhouse.
This lack of supply chain transparency combined with a dearth of market-ready and traceable low-emissions options means that purchasers in the U.S. cannot yet identify which beef is produced using lower-emissions practices, relative to national or regional averages.
What about labels touting lower-emissions beef?
In the U.S., labels are beginning to offer certified “carbon neutral” or “net zero” beef. These claims are largely based on carbon offsetting — either purchasing investments in renewable energy or counting carbon removals from growth of nearby trees. Only one of five labels we reviewed mentioned strategies to directly reduce production emissions.
It’s currently impossible to independently verify any claims made by these emerging labels. None of the U.S. labels we reviewed provide publicly available data (such as peer-reviewed life cycle assessments or other accounting analyses) to reflect their cattle’s full lifespan. Further data is also needed to evaluate each certification’s impacts on yields (or meat production per hectare) to understand the effect on total carbon costs.
Filling these data gaps is necessary to both verify labels’ claims and help purchasers find legitimately lower-emissions beef alongside their other animal welfare and sustainability goals.
But let’s be clear: While there are ways to lower beef’s emissions and credibly demonstrate that, it is highly unlikely that beef could ever be truly “net zero” in its climate impact.
What should companies and consumers do until verifiably lower-emissions beef is available for purchase?
Until supply chain transparency and mitigation strategies improve, we recommend food purchasing organizations follow these guidelines to reduce associated GHG emissions in their beef supply chain and minimize trade-offs:
- Serve less beef. Reducing per capita beef consumption in high-consuming regions is essential to curbing climate change. Food service companies can reduce their emissions by shifting toward plant-forward meals with more diverse protein sources, such as legumes, nuts, seeds and alternative proteins.
- Balance priorities. Food purchasing organizations aiming to meet animal welfare, antibiotic use, or other sustainable sourcing commitments may wish to source grass-fed or organic beef. To meet climate commitments while doing so, they’ll need to source even less beef to offset any higher emissions from these alternative systems. Our report provides scenarios quantifying how much less beef is needed to meet multiple priorities at once.
- Engage producers to adopt climate-friendlier practices. Work directly with existing producers and suppliers to adopt practices that reduce emissions. Funding or partnering on projects that reduce emissions may help drive scale and adoption.
Although labels that verify lower-emissions beef are not yet widely available, they may be in the future as data and supply chain traceability improve. In the meantime, food purchasing organizations can still make progress on reducing their total emissions and help create a market for more sustainable and lower-emissions beef. While achieving carbon-neutral beef is likely unfeasible, reducing beef-related emissions as much as possible is an important tool in the climate toolbox. At the same time, efforts to support lower-emissions practices must go hand-in-hand with reducing overall demand for beef.