The carbon footprint of nuts
Nuts emits about 0.398 kg CO₂e per 1 kg of shell free, dry nut. Below is where that figure actually comes from — every stage of the chain, not a single headline number.
- Farm
- 3.374 kg
- 92%
- Emissions on the farm itself — livestock methane, fertiliser, fuel, manure.
- Packaging
- 0.124 kg
- 3%
- Producing the packaging it reaches you in.
- Transport
- 0.107 kg
- 3%
- Moving it from farm to processor to shop.
- Processing
- 0.051 kg
- 1%
- Turning the raw product into food: milling, refining, slaughter, curing.
Land Use Change is negative (-3.258 kg) for this food — growing it stores more carbon in soil and vegetation than the change releases. That credit is already subtracted from the 0.398 kg total.
How it is grown changes the number by 36%
These are 5 separately assessed production systems for the same product. Emissions are farm-gate — the part the grower controls — and range from 2.824 to 4.433 kg CO₂e. A label on a shelf almost never tells you which one you are holding.
- Walnut, dried inshell, varieties with lateral fructification, conventional, at farm gatelowest2.824
- Walnut, dried inshell, conventional, national average, at farm gate3.695
- Walnut, dried inshell, national average, at farm gate3.798
- Walnut, dried inshell, traditional varieties, conventional, at farm gate3.985
- Walnut, dried inshell, traditional varieties, organic, at farm gate4.433
kg CO₂e per 1 kg of shell free, dry nut, cradle to farm gate. Farm-gate figures exclude processing, packaging and transport, so they sit below the full total above.
Lower-carbon alternatives
Each emits less than half as much as nuts.
Similar products
Common questions
- How much CO2 does nuts produce?
- About 0.398 kg CO₂e per 1 kg of shell free, dry nut, measured across the supply chain. That is roughly the same as driving 2 km in an average petrol car.
- What drives the footprint of nuts?
- Farm is the largest contributor at 3.374 kg CO₂e, about 848% of the total. Transport is only 0.107 kg — which is why what you eat matters far more than how far it travelled.
- Does how nuts is produced change its footprint?
- Yes, substantially. Across 5 production methods in this dataset the farm-gate emissions range from 2.824 to 4.433 kg CO₂e — a difference of 36%.
- Where does this data come from?
- The WRAP UK Food & Drink Emission Factor Database v2.0, which aggregates peer-reviewed life-cycle assessments. This product's figures come from Poore & Nemecek (2018).
Figures from the WRAP UK Food & Drink Emission Factor Database v2.0, which aggregates published life-cycle assessments; this product's data originates from Poore & Nemecek (2018), for global. Real values vary by farm, region and method — treat these as the shape of the problem, not a measurement of any one item on your shelf.
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