A dog’s diet normally has greater environmental impacts than a person’s, reveals new study

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, February 10, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Diets rich in meat, eggs and dairy products have substantial environmental impacts. However, a new study has demonstrated that it usually does more good for the planet and farmed animals to change the diet of your dog, than your own diet.

The study published by veterinary Professor Andrew Knight in the journal Animals, calculated that globally, 13 farmed land animals are consumed within the diet of an average dog each year, compared to nine for a human. That’s an increase of around 40%. This is primarily due to more dietary energy being supplied by animal-based ingredients in the diets of average dogs (~ 34%) compared to average people (~19%).

These results reflect global averages, and vary between countries. For a high income country like the US, meat consumption for both people and pets is substantially increased. In the US a person consumes more farmed land animals annually (24) compared to a dog (20), but the difference is smaller (around 20%).

The impacts of traditional meat-based pet diets are surprisingly large. However alternative diets based on plants, microbial protein, and cultivated meat (grown in bioreactors) are increasingly available. Entirely plant-based, i.e., vegan, pet diets are often available from online shops, and increasingly, pet stores. By early 2026, 14 studies and one systematic review had shown good health outcomes when such diets are fed to dogs or cats. However, such diets do need to be sourced from responsible pet food companies, and supplemented with all necessary nutrients, to ensure they’re nutritionally sound.

The benefits for farmed animals and the environment of such diets can be surprisingly large. If all pet dogs were transitioned onto nutritionally sound vegan diets, six billion land animals could be spared from slaughter annually. More greenhouse gases than produced by the entire UK could be saved—1.5 times as many, in fact. And the food energy savings could feed 450 million people—the entire human population of the EU. Knight notes that all of these figures used data from 2018. With dog population growth faster than that of human population growth, the potential benefits of plant-based pet diets are even larger today.

After analysing survey result from thousands of pet carers, Knight also calculated that at least 150 million dogs and cats could be converted to nutritionally sound vegan diets. However, this assumed only one dog or cat per household. In reality many people have more than one, and so as Knight notes, the true numbers are probably several times higher.

The study assessed sustainable pet diets against ‘effective altruism’ criteria. Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reason to work out the most effective ways to help others. Issues are prioritized based on how large in scale, how neglected, and how solvable they are. One noteworthy finding was that sustainable pet diets are a highly neglected field, with only around two researchers worldwide focused on this issue fulltime, outside of pet food companies, and with well under one percent of the farmed animal advocacy movement’s annual budget dedicated to this area.

Knight concluded that “Plant-based pet diets provide a highly impactful, yet largely overlooked, opportunity to reduce farmed animal use, improve global food security, and mitigate the climate and biodiversity crises.” Knight called on animal advocates and environmentalists to “broaden their anthropocentric focus on human dietary change.” “It’s ironic”, he said, “that the animal advocacy movement has had a blind spot, when considering the diets of our animals”.

PROF. ANDREW KNIGHT
Sustainable Pet Food Foundation
+44 7577 899614
email us here

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