A recent study by Oxford University caused a stir earlier this year when it stated that if all of the United Kingdom’s big meat-eaters cut down on their carnivorous intake, it would be akin to taking 8 million cars off the road. The study estimated that the average amount of carbon dioxide produced by a person with a high meat diet is 10.24kg per day. This is a long way off a low meat diet, which analysts estimated produces 5.37kg of Co2 per person per day, let alone a vegetarian diet (4.16 kg Co2/person/day) or a vegan diet (2.47 kg Co2/person/day). Here, big meat-eaters were categorized as people who ate more than 100g of meat daily while low meat-eaters included those who eat 50g or less of meat daily. The meat industry responded by saying that the analysis was exaggerated and asserted 'simplistic conclusions to a very complex topic.'
The link between mass meat production and environmental impact is now widely accepted, with extensive data on indicators from how much land is deforested for beef supply to soybean exports, 80 percent of which are largely used for animal feed. And as more people become opt for a plant based diet and the alternative meat market grows, it's clear that awareness on the topic has trickled down to consumers.
The following chart uses data from Statista’s Consumer Insights survey to look at just how commonplace it is to be a flexitarian in Europe. Flexitarianism is a term used to describe when people are mostly vegetarian but occasionally will eat meat or fish. While the data does not provide the reasons respondents have chosen this diet, (since it is also linked to cultural norms and available produce), it does provide some oversight to regional patterns and differences. For example, nearly one in five (19 percent) respondents in Germany and Spain claimed to be flexitarians in 2022-23, versus 14 percent of French respondents. In Eastern Europe, the diet is less widespread: only 7 percent of respondents in Poland, 5 percent in Hungary and 5 percent in Czechia said they had adopted it. Flexitarianism is particularly popular in Greece, where over a quarter of those surveyed said they had this diet.
