The Greensome
A meal with vegetables, grains and other foods

The same basis

Compare protein footprints

Land, water and climate impacts should be compared per 100 g of protein—not per kilogram of food. But a common unit alone cannot make different studies directly comparable.

An honest launch chart

No false precision.

There is no single independent dataset that gives directly comparable land, water and climate values for every route below. Rather than combine incompatible estimates into one leaderboard, this static comparison shows the main drivers that each measurement must include. Numerical values will be added only when the source, system boundary and protein basis can be checked together.

Protein routeLand · what to includeWater · what to checkClimate · key drivers
01Pulses and legumesCrop area and rotationGrowing region and irrigationFertiliser, soil and processing
02Mycoprotein and biomass fermentationFeedstock and facilityProcess water and cleaningElectricity and downstream processing
03Precision fermentationFeedstock and factory footprintProcess and purification waterEnergy mix and purification
04Cultivated meatInputs and production scaleCulture process and cleaningEnergy demand and scale
05InsectsSubstrate sourcing and rearingFeed and rearing conditionsSubstrate and drying energy
06Algae and seaweedSpecies and cultivation methodFreshwater needs by processNutrients, drying and processing
07Gas (air) fermentationGases, nutrients and equipmentProcess water and coolingHydrogen and electricity source
08Livestock, done betterGrazing, feed and land-use changeFeed, rainfall and local scarcityMethane, feed and manure

A driver is not a result. For background on established food-system assessments, see Our World in Data’s environmental impacts overview and the life-cycle study by Poore and Nemecek (2018). These sources do not provide like-for-like measurements for every emerging protein route.

How to read the chart

Same denominator. Clear boundaries.

  1. Use edible protein as the functional unit—not total food weight.
  2. Keep land-use change, feedstock, energy and processing in view.
  3. Separate measured commercial data from projections and pilot results.
  4. Treat water with location in mind; withdrawal and consumption differ.