Climate action: 10 steps to cut down on meat and dairy

Meat and dairy accounts for almost 15% of our total global emissions. Reducing the amount we eat is therefore going to be crucial to curbing climate breakdown. In fact, in October 2023, Ethical Consumer’s Climate Gap report named it as one of 10 key consumer actions we must take if we’re to achieve the UK’s national climate targets.

In this article, we give ten tips to cut down on meat and dairy, and discuss why it’s so important.

10 tips to cutting down on meat and dairy

For some, cutting down on meat and dairy will seem like a fun challenge: a way to learn new recipes, find new places to eat or feel assured you’re taking climate action. For others, it may be more daunting.

Luckily, there is a wealth of resources and support out there to help you learn about nutrition, track your progress or feel part of a wider movement.

1. Set yourself a realistic goal

Your food goal can be as big or as small as you like. For example, you could try not to eat meat for lunch, or you could limit yourself to just one meat-eating day a week or start with one vegetarian day a week.

People across the UK will have to cut their meat and dairy consumption by 13% between now and 2030 if we’re to meet national carbon reduction targets. Why not think about what 13% less meat and dairy would look like in your life and set this as your goal?

2. Build in gradual changes

You don’t have to give up everything all at once if it isn’t right for you. Swap the ham out of your sandwich, use vegetarian mince instead of meat mince, substitute oat milk for dairy milk.

Our shopping guides provide more details on some of the main types of food where you can make swaps for plant-based alternatives.

3. Trial being vegetarian or vegan for one month

Knowing there is an end in sight may make you more motivated. It’s a great trial to understand what you can do. And might be a step towards being vegetarian or vegan full time!

4. Find meat and dairy-free alternatives

Ethical Consumer’s shopping guides to meat-free sausages and burgers, vegan and non-dairy milks, butter & spreads, and other food can help you find good vegetarian and vegan alternatives.

If you like going out for food, looking up new veggie and vegan spots might make it more fun. The Happy Cow app helps you to find vegan and vegetarian food when you are out and about. It is also international so can be used wherever you are in the world.

5. Start with the biggest emitters

Exactly how bad meat is for the climate depends on what it is, how it is produced, and also how you divide up responsibility for things like deforestation. You may therefore want to think about what kind of meat you’re going to cut out or reduce.

Cutting lamb and beef out of your diet will have the biggest impact in terms of your carbon emissions. Our separate article on the carbon impact of food has more detail.

6. Track your impact

Use Meat Free Monday’s Impact Calculator to see your positive effect.

7. Learn new recipes

Meat Free Mondays offers recipes, background information and even a carbon calculator to work out the impact from your change on its website.

Vegetarian Society has recipes, information about nutrition, and advice on vegetarian food for pets on its website.

Veganuary provides nutrition tips and recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner on its website.

Keep it simple and be realistic about your cooking. If you don’t cook much, don’t feel that you have to learn the most complicated vegetarian or vegan recipes.

8. Understand the nutrition

Some people have health worries about going vegetarian or vegan. Take time to understand what foods you need. Vegetarian Society has information about nutrition on its website, as does Veganuary.

9. Get support

Getting someone else involved can help motivate you and keep you going. This might be asking whether a friend, family member or housemate wants to cut down with you and share the journey.

You could also get support online. Optimise has a nine-week online programme to support you in reducing your meat intake. It guides you in creating an action plan, celebrates your achievements and helps evaluate what is hard.

10. Join a bigger movement

Doing Meat Free Mondays or Veganuary can make you feel part of a bigger change.

Why is cutting down on meat and dairy important?

Animal farming is responsible for over 50% of greenhouse gas emissions from our food. Yet, according to the most recent figures from 2018, it only provides 37% of our protein and 18% of our calories.

The emissions associated with animals relate to lots of different parts of their lives.

• Carbon is emitted in the production of animal feed.
• Cows and sheep burp methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, while trying to digest grass.
• Rainforest is cleared to make space for ranching or feed production.
• Animals also require large amounts of land for grazing. This means that the space (usually) is not being used for forest, wetland or other climate-friendly ecosystems.

All this means that eating meat and dairy is a very inefficient way to get energy. The most straight-forward way to understand this is by thinking about a cow being fed. If a cow eats a meal of soya, they won’t save up all the energy for our steak or milk: they’ll use some of it up by walking around, mooing or just generally being alive. If we’d eaten that soya directly, we’d have received much more energy compared to the emissions from growing it. Although obviously much more complex than this, it helps explain why a kilo of beef has 12 times more carbon emissions than a kilo of tofu (which is made of soya).

By far the biggest way that consumers can reduce the greenhouse gas impacts of their food is by reducing their consumption of products from cows, sheep and goats (known as ruminant animals).

A 2023 academic study, which used dietary data for over 50,000 people in the UK, found that the emissions savings for a vegan compared to meat-heavy diet were even higher than previously thought. 

Read our feature on the climate impacts of meat, vegetarian and vegan diets >

In fact, in order to meet the UK’s national targets on climate change, we must reduce meat and dairy by 13% by 2030 from 2022 levels. This means that either everyone must cut their consumption by 13% or a significant proportion must cut their consumption significantly more to account for the fact that others may not take action. In 2022, meat and dairy consumption actually rose by 1%. 

When deciding on your own climate action, therefore, you may want to go beyond 13% to drive us towards the change needed as a whole.