Milk vs Rice: carbon footprint
Milk3.15kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Rice4.45kg CO₂e / kg
Milk or Rice? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Milk runs about 3.15 kg CO₂e a kilo. Rice runs 4.45.
Rice is the heavier choice, about 1.4× Milk.
Swap Rice for Milk and you cut about 1.3 kg a kilo, near 29% off.
Per kilo, that gap is a 8 km drive in a diesel car.
Milk: Same cows, same methane. Milk and cheese carry it in every glass and slice.
Rice: Modest. Fertiliser, the field itself, and a bit of milling.
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.