Pork: carbon footprint per kg
Live factor value
4.76 kgCO2e per kg
Source: The Big Climate Database (CONCITO, Denmark), 1.2 (revision 1). Factor set bcd-1.2-r1.
Pork sits in the middle of the meat range in The Big Climate Database — a long way below beef and lamb, and overlapping with chicken rather than sitting cleanly either side of it. The live average is below. Pigs are not ruminants, so they produce no digestive methane, and that single biological difference accounts for most of the gap to the red meats above them in this table.
What is left is mostly feed: pigs are fed grain rather than grazed, so the footprint tracks the cereals and soy in their diet, along with manure management and the energy used in housing. It is why pork's number is far more stable across the database's cuts than beef's is — the cut you choose changes it less than the animal you choose.
Worked example
Half a kilo of pork — roughly a week's bacon: 0.5 × 4.76 = 2.4 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free food calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is pork lower than beef and lamb?
- Pigs are monogastric, so they do not produce methane from digestion the way cattle and sheep do. Methane is the dominant term in ruminant footprints, so its absence moves pork down the table sharply.
- How does pork compare with chicken?
- It depends on the cut, and the two overlap. In this database the leg and drumstick cuts of chicken sit below the pork average while chicken breast sits above it — breast meat carries more of the bird per kilogram. Both are well below the ruminant meats either way.