Pasta: carbon footprint per kg
Live factor value
2.42 kgCO2e per kg
Source: The Big Climate Database (CONCITO, Denmark), 1.2 (revision 1). Factor set bcd-1.2-r1.
Dried pasta is a low-carbon staple — the live figure is below, and it sits far under every red meat in this database. It is durum wheat and water, milled and dried, so the footprint is essentially the wheat crop plus the energy used to dry it, with none of the feed-conversion losses that sit behind beef or lamb. It is not the floor, though: the lightest dairy, and even a chicken drumstick, land below it. Plant does not automatically beat animal item for item, and this table is a good place to see that.
The practical consequence is that a pasta dish's footprint is usually decided by what goes on top rather than what is underneath. Swapping the sauce moves the meal far more than swapping the pasta shape, the brand, or dried for fresh — the base is already close to the floor of what a filling meal can cost.
Worked example
A 500 g pack of dried pasta: 0.5 × 2.42 = 1.2 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free food calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- Is fresh pasta higher-carbon than dried?
- Lower, in this database — fresh pasta skips the drying energy, and that outweighs the egg it usually contains and the refrigeration it needs. The gap is small next to the sauce either way.
- Does wholewheat pasta have a different footprint?
- Wholewheat uses more of each grain, so slightly less wheat is needed per kilogram of pasta. The effect is minor compared with the choice of what you serve with it.