Our consumption of meat and dairy causes greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to current warming, which is why there is increasing attention for alternatives with a lower climate impact. The campaign Wissel ns Wat, which started this week and makes plant-based food more accessible, is a good example. How large is the impact of our diet actually, and to what extent can that impact be reduced by replacing it with plant-based alternatives?
Meat and dairy
To clarify this, we look at two product groups that play an important role in the Dutch diet: meat and dairy products. The climate impact of different greenhouse gases is often expressed in CO₂ equivalents (CO₂eq). This is a measure that converts emissions of, for example, methane and nitrous oxide into the amount of CO₂ with the same warming effect over a period of one hundred years.
Meat has a greater climate impact than dairy
Data from RIVM show the climate impact of the consumption of different food groups in the Netherlands. For example, the consumption of meat causes on average 1.14 kg CO₂eq per person per day, which amounts to about 415 kg CO₂eq per year. For dairy, including cheese products, the annual contribution is 305 kg CO₂eq per person.
Although dairy products are consumed in much larger quantities in the Netherlands than meat, the consumption of meat products per kg is associated with much more emissions on average. For that reason, the climate impact of meat in the Netherlands is greater than that of dairy. There are large differences in the climate impact of different types of meat, with emissions from beef consumption being the highest.
Together responsible for 8 percent of total emissions
The total greenhouse gas emissions per Dutch person was on average about 9300 kg CO₂eq in 2023 (Eurostat, 2026). Based on this, meat and dairy products together contribute about 8% to the total average annual emissions per person. That is a significant share for two product groups. The categories meat, dairy, and cheese also have the largest impact of all product groups (Figure 1).
Why beef is especially relevant
In the meat products category, something else plays a role in beef production. A significant part of the climate impact of cattle comes from methane emissions. Depending on the chosen period, methane is up to seventy times as effective in warming the climate. Over a period of one hundred years, this warming effect is about thirty times stronger than that of CO₂. On average, methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime of ten years, while CO₂ can remain in the atmosphere for centuries.
A reduction in methane emissions can therefore also have a relatively quick effect on limiting warming. For this reason, climate research often distinguishes between measures that mainly affect short-term warming, such as reduced methane emissions, and measures needed for a more stable long-term climate, including limiting CO₂ emissions. In recent years, however, methane emissions have been accelerating, partly due to an increase in large-scale livestock farming. Agriculture also causes a significant part of methane emissions in the Netherlands.
The importance of a good alternative
The extent to which replacing meat and dairy leads to less climate impact depends on the alternative chosen. Looking at meat replacement, the consumption of plant-based meat substitutes is associated with an average emission of about 3 kg CO₂eq per kg product (RIVM, Environmental impact of food products, 2024). In 2024, the average Dutch person consumed about 75 kg of meat products (Wageningen Social & Economic Research, 2025). If that amount is replaced with the same amount of meat substitute, it results per person annually in:
Meat substitute: 75 x 3 = 225 kg CO₂eq per year, instead of 415 kg CO₂eq per year from meat.
The calculations in this climate report show that two commonly used product groups together contribute significantly to the average emissions per person. How much less the climate impact is with the choice for a plant-based alternative also depends on the current diet. Especially when beef is replaced, the climate impact can decrease strongly. A reduction in our consumption of meat and dairy thus measurably contributes to counteracting current warming.