Farmed fish vs Farmed shrimp: carbon footprint
Farmed fish13.63kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Farmed shrimp26.87kg CO₂e / kg
Farmed fish or Farmed shrimp? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Farmed fish runs about 13.63 kg CO₂e a kilo. Farmed shrimp runs 26.87.
Farmed shrimp is the heavier choice, about 2.0× Farmed fish.
Swap Farmed shrimp for Farmed fish and you cut about 13.24 kg a kilo, near 49% off.
Per kilo, that gap is a 78 km drive in a diesel car.
Farmed fish and shrimp pay for feed, energy to run the ponds, and sometimes cleared mangroves.
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.