Substituting beans for beef as a contribution toward US climate change targets

Abstract

Shifting dietary patterns for environmental benefits has long been advocated. In relation to mitigating climate change, the debate has been more recent, with a growing interest from policy makers, academics, and society. Many researchers have highlighted the need for changes to food consumption in order to achieve the required greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. So far, food consumption has not been anchored in climate change policy to the same extent as energy production and usage, nor has it been considered within the context of achieving GHG targets to a level where tangible outputs are available. Here, we address those issues by performing a relatively simple analysis that considers the extent to which one food exchange could contribute to achieving GHG reduction targets in the United States (US). We use the targeted reduction for 2020 as a reference and apply published Life Cycle Assessment data on GHG emissions to beans and beef consumed in the US. We calculate the difference in GHGs resulting from the replacement of beef with beans in terms of both calories and protein. Our results demonstrate that substituting one food for another, beans for beef, could achieve approximately 46 to 74% of the reductions needed to meet the 2020 GHG target for the US. In turn, this shift would free up 42% of US cropland (692,918 km 2). While not currently recognized as a climate policy option, the Bbeans for beef^ scenario offers significant climate change mitigation and other environmental benefits, illustrating the high potential of animal to plant food shifts. Climatic Change

Full text

Substituting beans for beef as a contribution toward US
climate change targets
Helen Harwatt
1
&Joan Sabaté
1
&Gidon Eshel
2,3
&
Sam Soret
1
&William Ripple
4
Received: 16 February 2016 /Accepted: 10 April 2017
#Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017
Abstract Shifting dietary patterns for environmental benefits has long been advocated.
In relation to mitigating climate change, the debate has been more recent, with a growing
interest from policy makers, academics, and society. Many researchers have highlighted
the need for changes to food consumption in order to achieve the required greenhouse
gas (GHG) reductions. So far, food consumption has not been anchored in climate
change policy to the same extent as energy production and usage, nor has it been
considered within the context of achieving GHG targets to a level where tangible outputs
are available. Here, we address those issues by performing a relatively simple analysis
that considers the extent to which one food exchange could contribute to achieving GHG
reduction targets in the United States (US). We use the targeted reduction for 2020 as a
reference and apply published Life Cycle Assessment data on GHG emissions to beans
and beef consumed in the US. We calculate the difference in GHGs resulting from the
replacement of beef with beans in terms of both calories and protein. Our results
demonstrate that substituting one food for another, beans for beef, could achieve ap-
proximately 46 to 74% of the reductions needed to meet the 2020 GHG target for the US.
In turn, this shift would free up 42% of US cropland (692,918 km
2
). While not currently
recognized as a climate policy option, the Bbeans for beef^scenario offers significant
climate change mitigation and other environmental benefits, illustrating the high poten-
tial of animal to plant food shifts.
Climatic Change
DOI 10.1007/s10584-017-1969-1
*Helen Harwatt
hharwatt@gmail.com
1
Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, USA
2
Physics Department, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA
3
Present address: Radcliffe Inst. for Advanced Study, Harvard, USA
4
Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

1 Introduction
Climate change is one of the defining public issues of our time, threatening crop yield in
some regions, reducing access to water, increasing human toll due to weather extremes, and
increasing the spread of infectious disease among a myriad of other, mostly adverse, effects
(Stern 2007;Blancoetal.2014). The Copenhagen Accord and Paris Agreement acknowl-
edge that limiting global mean temperature rise to ≤2 °C above pre-industrial levels requires
deep cuts in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (UNEP 2011; UNFCCC 2015).
Additionally, the Paris Agreement states that efforts to limit warming to no more than
1.5 °C are needed to significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change
(UNFCCC 2015), requiring deeper cuts in global GHGs. Currently, climate change policy
largely focuses on reducing carbon dioxide (CO
2
) emissions, the dominant anthropogenic
GHG (Solomon et al. 2007). Yet realizing ≤2 °C warming also requires major reductions in
non-CO
2
GHG emissions (primarily methane (CH
4
) and nitrous oxide (N
2
O)) (Stehfest et al.
2009;Poppetal.2010; Bajzelj et al. 2014;Blancoetal.2014), especially in the near term
(Ripple et al. 2014; Pierrehumbert and Eshel 2015). Globally, livestock farming accounts for
~15% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions (Gerber et al. 2013) and is the primary
anthropogenic source of CH
4
and N
2
O emissions, producing around 50 and 60%, respec-
tively (Smith et al. 2007). This is particularly significant given that on a mass basis, CH
4
and
N
2
O have 25 and 298 times the centennial-mean global warming potential of CO
2
(Myhre
et al. 2013)
.
In addition, CH
4
has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than CO
2
(9–12 years),
enhancing its near-term prominence (Myhre et al. 2013) and highlighting the importance of
early focus on livestock.
Livestock accounts for up to half of the technical GHG mitigation potential of the
agriculture, forestry, and land-use sectors (Herrero et al. 2016). Yet even the most
technologically possible GHG reductions (32%) are outpaced by increasing demand for
meat (Gerber et al. 2013). In addition, due to adoption constraints, costs and numerous
trade-offs only 10% of the livestock-related technical GHG mitigation potential is viable
(Herrero et al. 2016). Without significant dietary shifts, food-related GHG emissions in
2050 would constitute half of the total emissions budget imposed by the 2 °C target
(Springmann et al. 2016). Hedenus et al. (2014) have shown that food-related emissions
could exceed the full emissions budget by as early as 2070. Hence, a dietary shift away
from livestock products is most likely required in addition to technological reduction of
agricultural GHG emissions (Hertwich et al. 2010;Poppetal.2010; Bajzelj et al. 2014;
Hedenus et al. 2014).
Modifying diets for environmental benefits has long been advocated (Gussow and Clancy
1986) and has been enjoying considerable attention recently (Stehfest et al. 2009; Scarborough
et al. 2014; Green et al. 2015; Machovina et al. 2015;Lambetal.2016;Springmannetal.
2016). Despite this growing interest, so far, dietary choices have not been as central in climate
change discourse as energy production and usage (Stehfest et al. 2009;Baileyetal.2014;
Bajzelj et al. 2014). The analysis presented here seeks to specifically assess the potential
contribution of simple dietary changes toward achieving the US GHG emissions target for
2020, which we use as a reference. To keep the analysis tractable, we consider replacing one
item, beef, the highest GHG emitting food item (Nijdam et al. 2012; Eshel et al. 2014), with
beans, a lower GHG intensity food (Nijdam et al. 2012). This work is novel in that no other
analysis has placed potential diet changes in the context of meeting country-wide GHG
reduction targets.
Climatic Change

2 Methods
The US President’s Climate Change Plan sets out to reduce net US GHG emissions by 17%
below 2005 levels (6438 million metric tons, mmt, of CO
2
equivalent, denoted CO
2
e) by the
year 2020 (EOP 2013). This target requires net 2020 GHG levels to remain below 5344 mmt
CO
2
e, a 7% reduction from current net emissions of 5791 mmt CO
2
e(EPA2015)(asthemost
recent data available, we refer to 2013 levels as Bcurrent emissions^).
This analysis is based on replacing beef consumption with beans. Beef is the most GHG-
intensive food item, with emissions ranging from 9 to 129 kg CO
2
e/kg, whereas compara-
tively legumes result in 1–2kgCO
2
e/kg (Nijdam et al. 2012). In addition, legumes are a
high protein food currently consumed at levels well below the US government’sdietary
recommendations (USDA 2012c; Moore and Thompson 2015). Legumes are therefore a
natural option for substantially reducing GHG emissions while improving nutrition. We
calculate the net emission change by taking the averted beef emissions and subtracting the
emissions associated with producing the legume replacement. We use emission factors from
US Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) of 40.2 kg CO
2
e/kg beef and 0.8 kg CO
2
e/kg beans
(Nijdam et al. 2012). The beef LCA reflects typical US beef production, Midwestern feedlot
finishing of range-weaned calves (Pelletier et al. 2010). Live to retail weight loss is
accounted for, using a factor of 2.7 (Nijdam et al. 2012). As a sensitivity analysis, we also
use a global average from Nijdam et al. (2012), of 25.5 kg CO
2
e/kg beef and 1.1 kg CO
2
e/kg
beans, derived from a review of 52 LCA studies of meat and its alternatives (Nijdam et al.
2012). Because beef emission estimates vary widely, we use their geometric mean. The 52
LCAs included CO
2
e emissions from the cultivation/farming process and transportation to
retail. Additionally, the beef LCAs include direct and indirect N
2
O emissions from feed
production, CH
4
from enteric fermentation, N
2
OandCH
4
from manure management, and
carbon (C) emissions due to the slaughter process. GHGs from the production of farm
machinery, changes in soil C emissions, and emissions related to land use change are not
considered here. For both beans and beef, the bulk (>90%) of emissions occur during
production (Nijdam et al. 2012). We consider the mass necessary to fully replace both kcals
and protein delivered by beef with beans, using nutritional information for both beef (USDA
2015a) and beans (USDA 2015b), and report each separately. Beef provides 332 kcals and
14.4 g protein per 100 g of raw weight (USDA 2015a), and raw beans’corresponding values
per 100 g are 341 kcals and 21.6 g protein (USDA 2015b) (we use raw weights because the
emissions data apply to the retail level). The corresponding moisture content of the raw
weights of beef and beans is 54 and 11%, respectively. The caloric equivalence ratio of
substituting beans for beef is 0.97 (332 beef kcals divided by 341 bean kcals), and the
protein mass ratio is 0.66 (14.4 g beef protein divided by 21.6 g bean protein). Consequently,
we derive energy (kcal) and protein equivalence emissions factors using:
&US emissions, energy equivalence: 40.2 kg CO
2
e/kg—(0.8 kg CO
2
e/kg
×0.97) = 39.4 kg CO
2
e/kg
&US emissions, protein equivalence: 40.2 kg CO
2
e/kg—(0.8 kg CO
2
e/kg
×0.66) = 39.7 kg CO
2
e/kg
&Global emissions, energy equivalence: 25.5 kg CO
2
e/kg—(1.1 kg CO
2
e/kg
×0.97) = 24.4 kg CO
2
e/kg
&Global emissions, protein equivalence: 25.5 kg CO
2
e/kg—(1.1 kg CO
2
e/kg
×0.66) = 24.8 kg CO
2
e/kg
Climatic Change

We next use US beef consumption data (USDA 2012b), converting carcass to retail weights
following Nijdam et al. (2012). Finally, we obtain emission savings due to substituting beans
for beef in the energy and protein equivalence by applying the above factors to US annual beef
consumption, 8.4 mmt. We report results using both US specific and global GHG emission
factors for beef and beans. As the US is a net exporter of beans (USDA 2012c)andbeef
(USDA 2012a), we assume that the consumption amounts in this analysis are relevant to the
US GHG inventory and hence our Bbeans for beef^scenario is appropriate for considering as
part of US GHG reduction efforts. We treat the envisioned dietary change in isolation,
quantifying its effect as the only emission reduction measure implemented toward the 2020
target. We do not consider land use changes associated with converting pasture and cropland
from beef into beans.
3 Results and discussion
Substituting beans for beef in the US diet would reduce CO
2
e emissions by 334 mmt,
accomplishing 75% of the 2020 reduction target. Using global emissions factors, the figures
reduce to 209 mmt CO
2
e and 47%, respectively (Table 1), due to large differences between US
and global emissions factors (Fig. 1). The results are almost identical when conserving either
protein mass or energy (Table 1).
Our findings demonstrate that substituting plant sourced foods for animal sourced foods can
play an important role in climate change mitigation. While substituting beans for beef does not
entirely satisfy the US GHG reduction targets, it could be combined with mitigation efforts for
other major emitters such as power generation or transportation. While our estimate represents
the upper bound, given the sizable contribution to the GHG reduction target, a lower level of
uptake, i.e., less than 100%, would still provide an important contribution.
The example analyzed is particularly impactful for mitigating near-term global temperature
rise (Rockstrom et al. 2009; Ripple et al. 2014). Radiative forcing in the short-term, i.e., over
the next several decades, will be dominated by CH
4
due to its relatively short atmospheric
lifetime (~9 years) in comparison to CO
2
(~100 years) and its much higher global warming
potential (Myhre et al. 2013). Because we replace beef, a high CH
4
source, with beans, a
relatively much lower CH
4
source, the expected resultant decline in radiative forcing and
decline in decadal scale warming will be greater than that expected from current policies,
Tab l e 1 Actual CO
2
e reduction and percent of the US 2020 CO
2
e target achieved by substituting beans for beef
in the calorie and protein mass equivalence
Scenario Beans for beef: energy equivalent Beans for beef: protein mass equivalent
% contribution to 2020
US climate change
target
CO
2
e reduction
(million metric
tons)
% contribution to 2020
US climate change
target
CO
2
ereduction
(million metric
tons)
US specific LCA
emissions
factors
74 332 75 334
Global LCA
emissions
factors
46 206 47 209
Climatic Change

which focus almost exclusively on reducing CO
2
emissions (Pierrehumbert and Eshel 2015).
However, to meet long-term GHG reduction targets, significant reductions of both CO
2
and
non-CO
2
emissions are required (Blanco et al. 2014).
Although the goal of our analysis is to assess the potential of conceptually simple food
substitutions to contribute to climate change goals, the resultant shifts—requiring societal level
behavior change (Popp et al. 2010; Green et al. 2015)—are non-trivial and unprecedented at the
national level. Policy innovation and experimentation, and economic incentives (Ripple et al.
2014) will likely be required to propel such shifts (Bajzelj et al. 2014). While a national substitution
of beans for beef would be socially demanding, a strong willingness to make dietary changes for
environmental improvements, including eliminating red meat, has been demonstrated (Bailey et al.
2014). For example, in 2014, Ipsos MORI (Market & Opinion Research International) conducted
an online survey of at least 1000 individual consumers from each of the following countries:
Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Africa, the UK, and the
US (Bailey et al. 2014). Among those aware of the climate impact of meat, 44% were likely to
reduce their meat consumption and 15% had already reduced their meat consumption. A public
survey conducted by the UK government revealed that from over 3000 participants, 85% stated
that they will or maybe will change their diets for environmental improvements, and 53% were
willing to give up red meat (DEFRA 2011). Furthermore, consumer acceptance could possibly be
increased by plant-based beef analogs (Hoek et al. 2011;Baileyetal.2014) that have become more
palatable, available and accepted, now being regularly availed by a third of US consumers (Mintel
2015). Because these meat analogs have very similar GHG emissions to the beans used in our
analysis (Nijdam et al. 2012), if beef is replaced by meat analogs, we expect similar GHG
reductions to those presented for replacing beef with beans. To further ease the implementation
of such a policy, increasing awareness of the impacts food choices have on climate change and also
on the urgency and importance of reducing the impacts of climate change are likely to be crucial
(Stern 2007;Rippleetal.2014;Baileyetal.2014). Recent findings have demonstrated that people
who are the most aware of the related climate impacts have a greater likeliness of having already
reduced their meat consumption and a greater likeliness of reducing meat consumption in the
future (Bailey et al. 2014). Highlighting the human health benefits related to such a policy could
increase consumer interest (Stehfest et al. 2009; Bailey et al. 2014), particularly as health benefits
have been a strong motivator for consumers purchasing meat analog products (Sadler 2004).
-500
-450
-400
-350
-300
-250
-200
-150
-100
-50
0
Reducon
needed from
current
emissions
Contribuon
from 'beans for
beef' (energy)
Contribuon
from 'beans for
beef' (protein)
Contribuon
from 'beans for
beef' (energy)
Contribuon
from 'beans for
beef' (protein)
US emissions factors Global emissions factors
CO2e million metric tons
Fig. 1 Greenhouse gas reductions. CO
2
e reductions needed to achieve US climate change targets set for 2020
(solid box), in comparison to the CO
2
e reductions achieved from substituting beans for beef, by energy
equivalence and protein weight equivalence using US emission factors (diagonally hatched boxes) and global
emission factors (horizontally hatched boxes)
Climatic Change

To provide further context to the analysis, replacing daily calories from beef could be
achieved with 188 g (0.8 of a cup) of cooked black beans, which 87% of Americans currently
consume below recommended levels (Moore and Thompson 2015). This shift will also reduce
chronic disease burdens including heart disease, diabetes, and some meat-related cancers
(Bouvard et al. 2015;Orlichetal.2013) and increase dietary fiber intake, currently also below
recommended or protective levels (Anderson et al. 2009;Orlichetal.2013).
The GHG targets assessed here are less demanding in comparison to those recommended to
stabilize global temperature increase below 2 °C (Gupta et al. 2007;UNEP2011;UNFCCC
2015). We analyze beef-to-beans in this analysis purely as an illustration of the substantial
emission reduction potential of a conceptually simple dietary shift. Future assessments could
compare more stringent GHG reductions or sweeping dietary shifts.
The actual emission reduction needed to meet the 2020 target depends on the considered
baseline emissions. For example, if we instead use the 2020 forecast (6206 mmt CO
2
e) (USDS
2010), as the baseline, and estimate beef consumption for 2020 by applying current per capita
consumption (8,428,000 metric tons for 308,745,538 people) to the projected 2020 US
population (334,503,000 people) (USCB 2014), we get 9.1 mmt of beef
(27.3 kg cap
−1
×334,503,000 people). Inputting these figures into the methodology of section
2 changes our estimated contribution to meeting the 2020 target from 46–74 to 26–42%.
Given the focus on GHG reduction targets, the current analysis included GHG emissions as
the sole environmental metric. A more comprehensive assessment would include the likely
very significant impacts of substituting beans for beef on other resource use. For example,
using the mean for US specific land-use factors from a published meta-analysis for beef
(86.5 m
2
/kg) and beans (4.4 m
2
/kg) (Nijdam et al. 2012), substituting beans for beef in the US
on a calorie equivalent basis will spare 692,918 km
2
of land, as an upper bound estimate. This
land area is equivalent to 42% of cropland in the contiguous US, which is 1,650,745 km
2
(USDA 2011), and roughly 1.6 times the surface area of California. This type of land sparingis
particularly relevant to climate change goals given the potential for enhancing carbon seques-
tration, which will likely augment GHG reductions (Lamb et al. 2016). By removing cattle
from rangelands and pastures, the beef-to-beans shift would also benefit woody plant recruit-
ment and biodiversity (Mishra et al. 2003; Pelletier and Tyedmers 2010;Phalanetal.2011;
Batchelor et al. 2015;Lambetal.2016), and substantially reduce water needs (Marlow et al.
2015), an increasingly important conservation issue under climate change (IPCC 2007;
Cisneros et al. 2014). Beyond calories and protein, and the general health co-benefits men-
tioned above, our analysis did not rigorously account for any health and/or nutritional factors
related to substituting Bbeans for beef.^Future assessments could usefully include such health
factors in an integrated assessment with environmental factors (Stehfest et al. 2009; Sabate
et al. 2014; Green et al. 2015; Springmann et al. 2016).
While some have argued that there are climate and environmental benefits associ-
ated with livestock production in certain locales and practices (de Oliveira Silva et al.
2016;Teagueetal.2016), others have forcefully demonstrated the factual inconsis-
tencies in these arguments (Beschta et al. 2013;Briskeetal.2013; Carter et al. 2014;
Phalan et al. 2016).
One of the key strategies for effective climate change mitigation is informing, educating,
and persuading individuals about what they can do (Stern 2007). Dietary shift is ideal in this
respect as it ascribes a pivotal role to personal choice in achieving GHG reduction targets.
Further strategies will likely prove necessary to assist consumer choice regarding dietary shifts,
including gaining support from the food service industry and retail markets.
Climatic Change

4 Conclusions
Key traits position livestock production as a prime target for climate policy. The significant
contribution to global GHGs, the dominance of short-lived methane, and thus the relatively
immediate impact compel dietary shifts away from livestock products as important tools for
mitigating anthropogenic climate change and particularly for avoiding near-term global tem-
perature rise. We further demonstrate this through our analysis, showing the significant GHG
reductions deliverable through simple food substitutions such as Bbeans for beef,^meeting up
to 74% of the reductions needed to reach the 2020 GHG target for the US. Additional benefits
include the sparing of 692,918 km
2
, equivalent to 42% of US cropland.
Acknowledgements We dedicate this article to the memory of our valued colleague and co-author, Dr. Sam
Soret, 1962 - 2016.
Author Contributions HH conceptualized the research, conducted the analysis and wrote the article; JS
obtained part of the research funding; GE assisted with the analysis and writing; SS obtained part of the research
funding; WR assisted with the analysis and writing. All authors contributed to editing the article.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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