Telecoupled environmental impacts of current and alternative Western diets

摘要: Abstract Low-meat and no-meat diets are increasingly acknowledged as sustainable alternatives to current Western food consumption patterns. Concerns for the environment, individual health or animal welfare raising consumers’ willingness adopt such diets. Dietary shifts in countries may modify way human-environment systems interact over distances, primarily a result of existing trade flows products. Global studies have focused on amount water, land, CO2 emissions embodied plant-based versus animal-based proteins, but potential alternative shift location environmental impacts has not yet been investigated. We build footprint trade-based analyses compare magnitude spatial allocation six consumers United States America (USA). used data declared well stylized average diet recent dietary guideline integrating targets. demonstrate that low-meat lower demand land utilize more crops with natural nitrogen fixation potential, also rely widely pollinator abundance diversity, can increase freshwater ecosystems some countries. recommend governments carefully consider local they promote, minimize trade-offs between global consequences through regulation incentives.