By Gary Thomas
Introduction
What is an Ecological
Footprint?
A Dog’s Dinner
Other Pets
Roll Over Beethoven?
Sources and Further Reading
Introduction
This may not come as a surprise, but people love pets. As a
conservative estimate, there are 8 million dogs and 8 million cats in
the UK alone, and a staggering 78 million dogs and 86 million cats in
USA. The benefits of owning a pet are numerous, as any pet owner will
attest to. Our pets keep us company, guard our homes, play with our
children and become loved members of the family. However, recently it
has been suggested that we need to take a closer look at the
sustainability of owning a pet.
The environmental impact of pets, and dogs particularly, was first
raised as an issue in 2009 when the book ‘Time to Eat the Dog? The Real
Guide to Sustainable Living’ was published. This divisive guide to
being eco-friendly, co-authored by Robert and Brenda Vale, claims that
that owning a dog is equatable to driving a SUV in terms of
environmental impact. As our pooches are generally not taking long haul
flights or driving to and from work every day, how is it possible that
our pets can have such a large carbon footprint? This article aims to
explore how man’s best friend could be affecting the environment.
What is an Ecological
Footprint?
The term ‘carbon footprint’ is used regularly in modern society and
in general terms is a measure of the impact of an activity on the
environment by measuring the CO2 emitted. It is of course a
complex process and a true carbon footprint also must take into account
other greenhouse gases as well as many other parameters, so carbon
footprints are always best estimations rather than true figures.
In this instance, rather than measuring the ‘carbon footprint’ of
keeping a pet, it is the ‘ecological footprint’ that is measured, which
is the amount of land needed for a given activity, with units of
‘global hectares (gha)’. However, both methods of measurements are
comparable.
A Dog’s Dinner
Pet food is the primary cause of dogs having a high ecological
footprint. The pet food industry in the UK is now worth an estimated
£2bn a year and in recent years, despite the financial difficulties,
there has been an increasing demand for ‘boutique’ pet foods – pet
foods that contain real, natural ingredients that even most people
wouldn’t turn their nose up at, such as lamb, spinach and blueberries.
The amount of manufacturing, production and air miles that go into dog
food means that it is very carbon intensive.
According to the authors of ‘Time to Eat the Dog?’, it takes around
0.84 hectares of land to feed a medium-sized dog, whereas the running
of an average SUV equates to the use of around 0.41 hectares, assuming
it covers around 10,000km. For a bit of perspective, the average
ecological footprint of a Vietnamese citizen is around 0.76 hectares.
An article in New Scientist, also published in 2009, largely agrees
with the book that the environmental impact of pet food should be
closely monitored.
However in some ways the pet food industry is relatively
environmentally sound. The industry often uses surplus stock from the
human food market, which would otherwise be disposed of in landfill or
burned, so pet food reduces waste and the environmental impact of the
human food market. Furthermore, there is very little household waste
from pet food-only 1% of pet food is thrown away, compared to 30% of
human food waste.
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Dogs can amass a large ecological footprint over
their lifetime, mainly due to the import of food. Image Source: www.ct.gov
Other Pets
Of course, it is not just dogs that have an ecological footprint and
in general the larger the animal, the higher its impact on the
environment. A cat has a footprint of 0.15 gha, which is about the same
as a small car.
Smaller pets, such as hamsters (0.014gha), canaries (0.007 gha) and
goldfish (a tiny 0.00034) have a negligible impact on the environment.
.jpg)
An eco-friendly pet: hamsters have an ecological
footprint of just 0.014gha. Image Source: www.photos.com
Roll Over Beethoven?
Pets are a part of the family and the Vales are not for one second
suggesting that eating a beloved pet will solve climate change. The
environmental impact of a pet is very small in the grand scheme of
things. However, it is an eye-opening exploration of the origin of
carbon emissions and how every aspect of our life can affect the
environment.
As many eco-conscious families already take great care in reducing
the carbon footprint of their own shopping basket, it may be worth
taking the same attitude with regards to our pet’s food. An alternative
could be to make your own dog food-this can be rewarding and extremely
beneficial for the planet.
Lastly, it must be remembered that your entire carbon footprint must
be taken into account before you decide to part ways with your pooch.
For example, the carbon footprint of owning a large dog is more than
offset if you live in a small house, take the bus to work or fly
infrequently.
Sources and Further
Reading
Authors
Claim Pets Are More Damaging to Environment Than SUVs ABC News,
23/12/2009
Time
to eat the pets? BBC News, 15/11/2009
Study says dogs have
larger carbon footprint than SUV, phys.org, 04/11/2009
Britain's
problem with pets: they're bad for the planet, The Guardian,
13/11/2009