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Overview
Overview
Food-based dietary guidelines recommend reducing meat and dairy consumption while increasing the intake of plant-based foods. However, the specific dietary changes required to achieve these shifts remain poorly understood. Through the ABC-SHEADE project, we are exploring real individual dietary pathways to accelerate dietary behaviour change and transition toward more sustainable and healthy diets in Europe. In our study, we identified purchasing patterns among UK household individuals who significantly lowered their food-related carbon footprint over time, mainly due to reductions in red meat.
Citation: Carr, T.W. et al. Eating habits and sociodemographic factors impact household dietary greenhouse gas emissions reduction in Great Britain. Commun Earth Environ 6, 312 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02252-x
Alignment with the EAT-Lancet Commission
Alignment with the EAT-Lancet Commission
Our findings demonstrate how real-life dietary changes, particularly reducing red meat consumption, deliver measurable co-benefits—achieving a 34% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Key actors
Key actors
709 UK households from ~30,000 British households from the Kantar Worldpanel Take Home data (52 w/e Dec. 2012–2019)
We identified two dietary patterns:
Plant-based adopters: adopted healthier dietary patterns (typically more educated individuals with higher incomes, aged 45+ years); and
Households that shifted toward dairy and convenience foods: resulting in less healthy dietary changes (typically smaller households with older members)
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
We observed differences in dietary changes and sociodemographic factors; however, reduction of red meat was consistently the common factor that drove significant benefits.
Next steps
Next steps
Our study reveals that even small dietary shifts can lead to significant environmental gains.
Supporting healthy and sustainable diets requires targeted policies to enhance the affordability, availability, and convenience of nutritious plant-based foods.
While country-specific contexts need further investigation, there is sufficient evidence to take action now.
For more information please contact: Tony Carr Tony.Carr@lshtm.ac.uk
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