Dark chocolate vs Lamb: carbon footprint
Dark chocolate46.65kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Lamb39.72kg CO₂e / kg
Dark chocolate or Lamb? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Dark chocolate runs about 46.65 kg CO₂e a kilo. Lamb runs 39.72.
It's close. Dark chocolate and Lamb land in roughly the same place.
Dark chocolate: Cocoa is tied to deforestation, so a chocolate bar hides a surprisingly heavy footprint.
Lamb: Cows and sheep burp methane and need a lot of land and feed, which is why red meat towers over everything else here.
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.