The carbon footprint of Dark chocolate

A kilogram of Dark chocolate works out to about 46.65 kg CO₂e (kg CO₂e / kg).

That lands it #42 of the 43 foods on Carbonle, one of the heaviest.

The number is a farm-to-shop average. It counts land use, growing, feed, processing, transport, retail and packaging, with methane folded in as its CO₂ equivalent.

Call it 108 times a kilo of apples (0.43 kg).

Growing a kilo throws off about as much CO₂ as a 273 km drive in a diesel car.

Cocoa is tied to deforestation, so a chocolate bar hides a surprisingly heavy footprint.

Want to shrink a plate's footprint fast? This is the one to eat less of.

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Figures from OWID / Poore & Nemecek 2018, licensed CC-BY 4.0.
How we get these numbers: Methodology.