Overview

• A peer-reviewed Nature Climate Change study from the University of Michigan and University of Minnesota used the FoodS3 platform to trace beef, pork and chicken supply chains for 3,531 cities.
• The analysis estimates urban meat-driven emissions at 329 million metric tons of CO2e per year, exceeding the United Kingdom’s annual footprint and comparable to U.S. domestic fossil fuel combustion cited by the authors.
• Per-capita hoofprints vary widely because greenhouse gas intensity depends on where and how livestock and feed are produced, with transport contributing relatively little and consumption levels proving a weak predictor.
• Los Angeles’s beef illustrates the supply-chain sprawl, with processing in 10 counties supported by livestock from 469 counties and feed from 828 counties.
• The authors recommend city accounting based on location-specific intensities and estimate that shifting away from beef and halving food waste could cut the total hoofprint by about half, or 123 to 142 million tons of CO2e.