The carbon footprint of pig meat
Pig Meat emits about 10.368 kg CO₂e per 1 kg of fat and bone-free meat and edible offal. Below is where that figure actually comes from — every stage of the chain, not a single headline number.
- Feed
- 4.298 kg
- 41%
- Growing, processing and shipping the crops the animals eat.
- Farm
- 2.477 kg
- 24%
- Emissions on the farm itself — livestock methane, fertiliser, fuel, manure.
- Land Use Change
- 2.244 kg
- 22%
- Carbon released when forest or grassland is cleared to produce it.
- Transport
- 0.501 kg
- 5%
- Moving it from farm to processor to shop.
- Packaging
- 0.432 kg
- 4%
- Producing the packaging it reaches you in.
- Processing
- 0.416 kg
- 4%
- Turning the raw product into food: milling, refining, slaughter, curing.
How it is grown changes the number by 60%
These are 9 separately assessed production systems for the same product. Emissions are farm-gate — the part the grower controls — and range from 3.296 to 8.284 kg CO₂e. A label on a shelf almost never tells you which one you are holding.
- Pig, conventionnal, Bleu Blanc Coeur, at farm gatelowest3.296
- Pig, Label Rouge, outdoor system, at farm gate3.372
- Pig, conventional, national average, at farm gate3.442
- Pig, Label Rouge, pig with run system, at farm gate4.673
- Fattened pig, organic, system n°1, at farm gate6.275
- Fattened pig, organic, system n°2, at farm gate6.428
- Fattened pig, organic, national average, at farm gate7.288
- Fattened pig, organic, system n°3, at farm gate8.155
- Fattened pig, organic, system n°4, at farm gate8.284
kg CO₂e per 1 kg of fat and bone-free meat and edible offal, 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 pig meat.
Similar products
Common questions
- How much CO2 does pig meat produce?
- About 10.368 kg CO₂e per 1 kg of fat and bone-free meat and edible offal, measured across the supply chain. That is roughly the same as driving 61 km in an average petrol car.
- What drives the footprint of pig meat?
- Feed is the largest contributor at 4.298 kg CO₂e, about 41% of the total. Transport is only 0.501 kg — which is why what you eat matters far more than how far it travelled.
- Does how pig meat is produced change its footprint?
- Yes, substantially. Across 9 production methods in this dataset the farm-gate emissions range from 3.296 to 8.284 kg CO₂e — a difference of 60%.
- 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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