Coffee vs Milk: carbon footprint
Coffee28.53kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Milk3.15kg CO₂e / kg
Coffee or Milk? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Coffee runs about 28.53 kg CO₂e a kilo. Milk runs 3.15.
Coffee is the heavier choice, about 9.1× Milk.
Swap Coffee for Milk and you cut about 25.38 kg a kilo, near 89% off.
Per kilo, that gap is a 149 km drive in a diesel car.
Coffee: Comes from growing and processing the crop, plus whatever it ships in.
Milk: Same cows, same methane. Milk and cheese carry it in every glass and slice.
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.