Barley vs Tofu: carbon footprint
Barley1.18kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Tofu3.16kg CO₂e / kg
Barley or Tofu? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Barley runs about 1.18 kg CO₂e a kilo. Tofu runs 3.16.
Tofu is the heavier choice, about 2.7× Barley.
Swap Tofu for Barley and you cut about 1.98 kg a kilo, near 63% off.
Per kilo, that gap is a 12 km drive in a diesel car.
Barley: Modest. Fertiliser, the field itself, and a bit of milling.
Tofu: Tofu and soy milk hand you protein at a fraction of beef's footprint. The swap that actually moves the needle.
Per-kilo numbers skip portion size and how the food was farmed, so take them as the shape of things, not the last word.
More match-ups
Figures from OWID / Poore & Nemecek 2018, licensed CC-BY 4.0.
How we get these numbers: Methodology.