Cheese: carbon footprint per kg
Live factor value
4.11 kgCO2e per kg
Source: The Big Climate Database (CONCITO, Denmark), 1.2 (revision 1). Factor set bcd-1.2-r1.
Cheese surprises people: per kilogram it carries a higher footprint than chicken and most fish, because it takes roughly ten litres of milk — with all the methane emissions of dairy cattle — to make a kilogram of semi-hard cheese. The live figure below comes from Denmark's official Big Climate Database.
For vegetarians, cheese is often the largest single line in a food footprint. Swapping some hard cheese for plant-based alternatives, or simply eating less of it, moves the number more than most people expect.
Worked example
A 250 g block of mozzarella: 0.25 × 4.11 = 1 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free food calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is cheese's footprint higher than chicken's?
- Concentration: many litres of methane-intensive dairy milk go into each kilogram of cheese. Per kg, hard cheeses often exceed pork and poultry.