Peas vs Tofu: carbon footprint
Peas0.98kg CO₂e / kg
vs
Tofu3.16kg CO₂e / kg
Peas or Tofu? Here's what each one costs the climate, measured per kilo over its whole life.
Peas runs about 0.98 kg CO₂e a kilo. Tofu runs 3.16.
Tofu is the heavier choice, about 3.2× Peas.
Swap Tofu for Peas and you cut about 2.18 kg a kilo, near 69% off.
Per kilo, that gap is a 13 km drive in a diesel car.
Peas: Beans and peas fix their own nitrogen, so they dodge most fertiliser emissions. Very low.
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.