Are Pets Really a Climate Problem?
Several studies claim that pets are major contributors to climate change. They suggest that dogs and cats consume a significant share of animal-derived calories and therefore carry a substantial “carbon pawprint.”
But what assumptions underlie those claims? Are those assumptions accurate? What biases are present? What’s the truth here?
Most estimates are based on modeling, not direct measurement. These models often calculate emissions from livestock production, then attribute a portion of that to pet food. Many assumptions are made about ingredient sourcing, production methods, and allocation of emissions.
Many models treat all animal-based ingredients as if they were produced primarily for pets. But pet food uses mostly byproducts and wastes from animals raised for human consumption. No animals are raised primarily for pet food. In fact, pet food production helps reduce the waste from animal agriculture that is already there.
Pet food isn’t even the sole outlet for those by-products. Some of them go right back into the animal production line as poultry, pigs, and fish feeds. Rendered fats are used to produce biofuels. Many industries rely on animal by-products in paints, lubricants, soaps, rubber (like tires), candles, ceramics, plastics, and cleaners. (Ever wonder why cats love to lick plastic grocery bags? They contain animal by-products!) Proteins can be used as organic fertilizer. Other components find their way into cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and textile manufacturing. Animal waste is even being used to replace petroleum-based components in products like asphalt.
Animal agriculture is often cast as the world’s biggest environmental villain. The reality is far more complicated. Livestock, poultry, and fish provide more than meat. Sustainability isn’t simply “meat versus plants.” It’s also about formulation, ingredient sourcing, production methods, packaging, distribution, and waste-stream management. A sustainable diet meets essential nutrient needs reliably and efficiently, focusing on balance and health outcomes while being mindful of the big picture.
Simply converting everyone, including pets, to vegan diets would not fix the environment. Plant agriculture cannot function in isolation. Nutrient cycling—especially nitrogen and phosphorus—has historically depended on animals returning organic matter to the soil. Remove livestock entirely, and those functions must be replaced with chemical inputs. We’ve already seen the results of this: less nutrition in the plants we grow for food, soil and water pollution from the runoff of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, topsoil degradation. That path isn’t sustainable.
All of agriculture is deeply interconnected. Animals are an integral, not optional, part of that system.
Example of a Flawed Study: Okin GS. Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats. PLoS ONE. 2017. 12(8)
Certain sources (particularly the vegan lobby) love to cite this study because it is shocking. Okin, a professor of geography at UCLA, asserts that 25–30% of the environmental impacts of animal agriculture can be attributed to pets.
But Okin’s conclusion rests on several flawed assumptions. He assumes that all animal products going into pet food would otherwise be eaten by people if they hadn’t been “hijacked” by the pet food industry. In practice, very little of what goes into pet food is human-edible in the conventional marketplace, so his numbers are dramatically inflated.
Pet food relies heavily on secondary streams from the human food system — not just rendered meals used in dry diets, but organ meats, trim, mechanically separated meat, fats, and other co-products incorporated into canned, fresh, and raw foods as well. These ingredients are nutritionally valuable, even if they are not culturally prized on human plates.
If these materials were not incorporated into pet diets, they would not suddenly become human entrées. They would move into lower-value channels or disposal. Pet food is, in many respects, a biological up-cycling system.
Poor analysis doesn’t mean the pet food industry is an environmental superstar. Dry extruded food is the most profitable format, and profitability has shaped the marketplace for decades—despite its negative effects on pet health, especially cats. But the existence of profit margins does not erase the underlying supply-chain reality: pets primarily consume portions of animals already raised for human food. Pets aren’t the problem here. People are.
Okin GS. Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats. PLoS ONE. 2017. 12(8)
Swanson KS, Carter RA, Yount TP, Aretz J, Buff PR. Nutritional sustainability of pet foods. Advances in Nutrition. 2013 Mar 1;4(2):141-50.
Yamka R. Sustainability in the pet food industry. Petfood Industry. 2017 August 10. https://www.petfoodindustry.com/pet-food-market/blog/15464145/sustainability-in-the-pet-food-industry