Cow’s Milk vs Plant & Almond Milks for the Environment (to be revamped)

Fact Sheet

Testing level 2 indent.

Overall Comparison

Quote: “Cow’s milk has significantly higher impacts than the plant-based alternatives across all metrics. It:

• causes around 3 times as much greenhouse gas emissions;
• uses around 10 times as much land;
• uses two to 20 times as much freshwater;
• and creates much higher levels of eutrophication.”
• Source:
• Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? The University of Oxford, Our World in Data Research Group, Hannah Ritche, Jan 19, 2022^[1]Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? The University of Oxford, Our World in Data Research Group, Hannah Ritche, Jan 19, 2022

Almond Milk Comparison

Defenders of dairy are quick to point out the high water use of almonds, but that’s only in comparison to other plant milks. Almond milk is still lower in water use than cow milk, and results in far fewer emissions, far less land use, and far less eutrophication than cow milk, as shown below.

• Cow milk compared to Almond milk in particular:
  • causes more than 4 times the GHG emissions
  • uses over 17 times more land
  • causes over 7 times the eutrophication
  • uses over 1.6 times as much water
  • Source:
    • Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? The University of Oxford, Our World in Data Research Group, Hannah Ritche, Jan 19, 2022^[2]Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? The University of Oxford, Our World in Data Research Group, Hannah Ritche, Jan 19, 2022

See Also

• Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? The University of Oxford, Our World in Data Research Group, Hannah Ritche, Jan 19, 2022
• BBC Science News, “Climate change: Which vegan milk is best?” February 22, 2019))

Citations