Milk: carbon footprint per kg
Live factor value
1.27 kgCO2e per kg
Source: Agribalyse (ADEME/INRAE, France), 3.1 (revision 1). Factor set agribalyse-3.1-r1.
Milk's per-kilogram footprint — shown live below from France's official Agribalyse database — is modest next to cheese or meat, but most households buy it weekly, so it accumulates: a pint a day adds up to well over 100 kg of CO2e a year.
The emissions are overwhelmingly on the farm: methane from cows and feed production, with processing and the bottle contributing little. Plant milks typically carry a third or less of dairy milk's footprint per litre.
Worked example
A week's milk for a household (~4 litres): 4 × 1.27 = 5.1 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free food calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- How do plant milks compare with dairy?
- Oat, soy and almond milks typically come in at a third or less of dairy milk's per-litre footprint, with oat usually among the lowest in European databases.