Your Pup’s Dinner Can Have Greater Climate Impacts Than Your Own Meals

Although many of us have been warned about the environmental impacts associated with our own dietary choices, I'll bet many of you have not thought about the environmental impacts from dog food. But these impacts do exist and surprisingly, they can be significant.
 

Dogs fed a diet of premium raw meat can have a larger climate pawprint than their owners, according to a recent study published by a team of scientists based at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Exeter. The analysis found that wet, raw, meat-rich dog foods are associated with substantially higher greenhouse gas emissions than are dry dog foods.
 

In their study – the largest of its kind conducted so far – the researchers estimated that production of ingredients used in UK dog foods contributes somewhere between 0.9–1.3 % to total UK greenhouse gas emissions.
 

You could be interested

Sustainability Trends In The Pet Industry

The scientists figured this out by examining ingredients and nutritional labeling on dog foods and using that information to calculate the carbon footprint for almost 1,000 commercial dog food brands, based on emissions created during production of the ingredients. Their study of food samples included dry, wet and raw foods, as well as plant-based and grain-free options (Figure 1).

 

Fig. 1. Simplified flow diagram showing the steps we take to calculate environmental impact estimates for each food. Ingredients list (1a), and typical analysis (1b), were web scraped from a single major UK pet retailer. Ingredient macronutrient information (3a) is from animal feed databases (INRAE-CIRAD-AFZ, 2021; USDA, 2023a) and USDA FoodData Central (USDA, 2023b). Environmental impact information (3b) is from the Poore and Nemecek (2018) meta-analysis, supplemented by information from Gephart et al. (2021) for fish and other aquatic foods.

How applicable are these findings to dog foods sold elsewhere in the world?

'Pet food is an international market with similar formulations across Europe and the US (although brands may vary), and trends (e.g. raw grain-free) are replicated across countries,' said the study's lead author, veterinarian John Harvey, who is a doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh and a Research Associate at the University of Exeter.

'Some countries [for example] have a higher wet versus dry sales mix — this is important because if a country where little wet food is currently sold suddenly increases its wet proportion, there can be big environmental consequences,' Dr Harvey told me in email.
 

Dr Harvey and collaborators also discovered that dog foods could generate greenhouse gas emissions that are equivalent to more than half the annual emissions produced by commercial airline flights burning jet fuel — assuming, of course, that the same types of dog foods are fed around the world as in the UK.
 

Dr Harvey and collaborators made some other surprising findings, too. For example, they found dramatic differences in environmental impacts when feeding dogs a vegan diet versus a raw meat diet.
 

'Dog foods showed over 65 times more variation in the effect they have on the planet, compared to a 2.5-fold difference between vegan and high-meat human diets,' Dr Harvey told me in email. This means that changing a dog's diet to a carefully selected meat diet — or to a vegan diet — has large impacts on the environment.
 

'The potential to reduce — or increase — environmental damage by changing dog diets is enormous,' Dr Harvey pointed out. 'By choosing meat products wisely for pet food and making labelling clearer, we can cut this hidden part of our food footprint and have healthy, well-fed dogs.'
 

Interestingly, recent studies indicate that vegan diets designed especially to meet dogs' nutritional needs, especially with careful sourcing for nutrients like vitamin D3 and taurine, can actually lead to better health outcomes (fewer disorders and fewer vet visits) than either conventional meat or raw meat diets (ref). Further, raw meat and conventional meat diets carry heightened health risks such as ingestion of microbial pathogens, particularly Salmonella and E. coli, as well as assorted nutritional deficiencies.
 

'As a veterinary surgeon working on environmental sustainability, I regularly see owners torn between ideals of dogs as meat‑eating 'wolves' and their wish to reduce environmental harm,' Dr Harvey told me in email. 'Our research shows just how large and variable the climate impact of dog food really is.'

Should all dogs either become vegans or solely eat kibble?

'I'm NOT trying to push a particular food agenda, just trying to provide information to support people making good decisions,' Dr Harvey replied in email.
 

'Simple rules like 'dry always has a lower environmental footprint than wet' do not hold for every product. The ingredient mix within each product is key,' Dr Harvey explained in email. 'So, for owners looking to reduce the environmental footprint of their pet food, it's important to know that choosing grain-free, wet or raw foods can result in higher negative environmental effects compared to standard dry kibble foods.'
 

Nevertheless, selecting foods that use genuine animal by‑products or plant proteins rather than competing directly for meat — so called 'prime meat' — that people typically eat is preferable. Using large amounts of prime meat increases greenhouse gas emissions, whilst the use of nutritious carcass parts that are in low demand helps limit environmental impact.

Which meats have the greatest environmental impact?

'For most metrics (especially carbon), beef followed by lamb have the highest impacts. However, there are lots of environmental variables (water, land use, biodiversity loss, eutrophication etc., etc.) you can look at – and the exact pattern varies across each one for each ingredient type.'
 

Dry food — not marketed as grain-free — tended to have a lower environmental impact than wet, raw or grain-free options. Dog owners who want to reduce environmental impacts but not change food type should check the label for descriptions of meat cuts used in the food, aiming for a lower content of prime meat.

What is the biggest barrier to changing a dog's diet?

'Which is environmental considerations being seen as in some way in conflict with strongly held views owners or others may have on what to feed,' Dr Harvey said. 'This doesn't have to be the case — whatever type of food is being fed to a pet, there's the opportunity to reduce impacts.'
 

The study's authors highlighted the need for greater transparency and better labeling of dog food ingredients to help consumers make informed choices, particularly as pet ownership continues to rise.
 

'It's important for owners to know that choosing grain-free, wet or raw foods can result in higher impacts compared to standard dry kibble foods,' Dr Harvey summarized. 'The pet food industry should make sure meat cuts used are of the types not typically eaten by humans, and that labeling is clear. These steps can help us have healthy, well-fed dogs with a smaller pawprint on the planet.'

 

Source: Forbes

Reference
John D. Harvey, Sarah L. Crowley, Vera Eory, and Peter Alexander (2026). Estimating the environmental impact of dog foods marketed in the UK, Journal of Cleaner Production | doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.147277