Concerned about climate change?
Want to reduce your emissions and try new foods?
With a few changes to your diet you could make a big difference!

Hello! We’re Eat Green Cardiff. We are a group of young people taking part in an Environmental Leadership Programme run by the charity UpRising. As part of the programme, we are running a campaign to encourage people to adopt a plant-based diet for one week, in an effort to reduce consumer impact on climate change.

The 21st of June 2020 was international climate day, to celebrate we launched Eat Green Week! As part of this, we asked people to take part in a week of plant-based eating in a bid to reduce their food-related carbon footprint. To help everyone achieve this we put together a FREE PLANT-BASED COOKBOOK with help from some of our favourite plant-based cafes, restaurants and brands from Cardiff. Click “Online Cookbook” below to view an online version of our cookbook. Click “Download Cookbook PDF” to download a PDF version of our cookbook for you to keep.

We would love for you to send pictures and tag us in pictures of your food on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook @eatgreencardiff.

Online Cookbook Download Cookbook PDF

Why does it matter?

Animal agriculture is one of the main drivers of climate change:

  • Believe it or not the farts of cows and sheep produce huge amount of methane, GROSS! [1]
  • Synthetic fertilizers used to grow crops to feed the livestock produce nitrous oxides. [1]
  • Methane traps 25 times more heat than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxides traps 200-300 times more heat! The two together account for around 65% of all agricultural emissions. It’s getting hot in here! [1]
  • Humans eat a lot of meat and dairy. The livestock and their feed take up a massive amount of room! The expansion of agricultural land often means we have to destroy the homes of other animals. This is one of the main reasons that 60% of all the species on earth have become extinct, just in the last 50 years! [2] Those poor animals!

So, how will adopting a plant-based diet help?

Meat and dairy production is responsible for 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, while the products themselves provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein levels around the world. [3] Who said you need meat to get your protein (Have you seen David Haye!)?

The informative graph below shows how much of a difference reducing meat and dairy could make. You could chop your emissions in half! Any reduction in your meat and dairy consumption will make a big difference (and it means less smelly cow farts - yay!).


Figure 1. Carbon footprint of various UK diets, in pounds of CO2-eq per day. [4]


We have to act now or a potentially catastrophic global temperature rise of 1.5° will be unavoidable by 2030. [5] The government has a part to play to reduce our emissions but by adopting this diet you can make a huge difference too.

We understand that meat can be tasty, but we believe a healthy planet for generations to come is better, and plant-based food is delicious! Not only will you be helping the planet, but you will be adopting a healthy and more ethical diet. If you want to take part in a week of plant-based eating subscribe to our mailing list by clicking on the subscribe button at the top of the page. We would absolutely love to have you!

If you have any questions before taking part, or during the week feel free to ask us anything on the following:

[1] Greenhouse Gas Protocol, 2014. Everything You Need to Know About Agricultural Emissions. [Online] Available at: https://ghgprotocol.org/blog/everything-you-need-know-about-agricultural-emissions [Accessed 27 03 2019].

[2] WWF. 2018. Living Planet Report - 2018: Aiming Higher. Grooten, M. and Almond, R.E.A.(Eds). WWF, Gland, Switzerland.

[3] Poore, J. & Nemecek, T., 2018. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), pp. 987-992.

[4] Scarborough, P. et al., 2014. Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK. Climatic Change, 125(2), pp. 179-192.

[5] IPCC, 2018: Summary for Policymakers. In: Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, H. O. Pörtner, D. Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J. B. R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M. I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor, T. Waterfield (eds.)]. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 32 pp.