Cane sugar vs Tofu: carbon footprint
Cane sugar3.2kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Tofu3.16kg CO₂e / kg
Cane sugar or Tofu? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Cane sugar runs about 3.2 kg CO₂e a kilo. Tofu runs 3.16.
It's close. Cane sugar and Tofu land in roughly the same place.
Cane sugar: Growing the crop plus the energy to refine it. Not nothing, nowhere near beef.
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.