'Oceans could be fishless by 2048': green facts and stats

High fliers

According to the charity Veganuary, 350,000 people who ate a vegan diet for just one month in 2020 saved 41,200 tonnes of CO2eq from the atmosphere – the same as 450,000 flights from London to Berlin.

Feed the world

36% of the world’s crops are being used to feed livestock animals rather than people, while 690 million people go hungry across the globe. A study from IOPscience found that if we grew food exclusively for human consumption, we could feed an additional 4 billion people.

Dairy me

Producing a glass of dairy milk results in almost three times the greenhouse gas emissions it takes to make plant drinks, according to a University of Oxford study. Production also takes up 10 times more land than it does to make the same amount of oat drink.

Oat drinks are made by soaking, blending, and straining oats. Vitamins and other nutrients are added

For peat’s sake

According to Friends of the Earth, 6m hectares of forest land – an area twice the size of Belgium – and similar scales of peat and wetlands, is converted to farmland each year to raise or feed livestock. But a global shift to a vegan diet would reduce land use by 75% – an area equivalent to the size of the US, China, the European Union and Australia combined.

A day at a time

Skipping meat for just one day a week can reduce your annual carbon footprint by as much as not driving your car for a whole month.

Swim against the tide

Lost and discarded fishing gear makes up the majority of large plastic pollution in the oceans, says Greenpeace. Worse still, experts forecast that fisheries will have collapsed by 2048 – leaving oceans fishless in less than 30 years unless we drastically reduce fishing around the globe.

Fortified oat drinks have more calories, carbs, and fibre than almond and soy drinks. They can be used in exactly the same amounts as cow’s milk

Related: 'The world's forest areas have shrunk by 178m hectares since 1990': climate emergency facts

Those in glass houses

Research from Grain and IATP shows that the world’s top five meat and dairy corporations are responsible for more annual greenhouse gas emissions than ExxonMobil, Shell or BP. By 2050, the livestock sector could be responsible for 80% of the allowable greenhouse gas budget.

Forest jump

If everyone in the world consumed a predominantly plant-based, unprocessed diet, nearly 5bn football fields worth of arable land could be returned to forested land.

In emission

If everyone in the world adopted a vegan diet, it would reduce food’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 6.6bn metric tons (a 49% reduction).

Freshen up

1/4 of our fresh water is used to support the meat and dairy industries. Switching to one plant-based meal a day can save more than 168,000 gallons of water a year, according to the One Meal A Day For The Planet campaign.

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