Which Milk Should We Be Drinking in Our Morning Coffee?

Is my oat flat white as good for the planet as I want it to be?

In my experience almost a third of coffee drinkers are choosing an alternative milk over cows milk, myself included. But are we being as sustainable as we want to be?

When deciding which milk to choose there are a couple of things we should look at, carbon emissions, water use, and land use. All of these things help us to work out which milk we should be having in our lattes, dairy, or non dairy. It turns out dairy hasn’t been unfairly demonised, it does generally have a much greater environmental impact than the most popular non-dairy alternatives.

When we consider CO2 emissions dairy milk consistently comes out as the biggest contributor. Producing about 330g of CO2 per cup, its emissions are almost three times greater than alternatives like oat and soy. A big reason for this is that cows require a lot of land, food, and water, and they also produce a lot of methane!

All of the plant based milks produce fewer emissions than dairy, but there are a few other things we need to consider. Producing dairy milk requires a lot of water, much of which comes from watering the crops the cows eat, and giving them water to survive. Almond milk is often criticised for its high water usage, but, it still requires a lot less water than dairy milk. Oat and soy use relatively little in comparison, as oats rely mostly on rainfall, and soy is generally a more water-efficient crop.

Land use is another important thing to consider, and once again it doesn’t look good for dairy! Producing one litre of dairy milk can use up to 10 times more land than non dairy alternatives. This is mostly due to the space needed for grazing, and growing animal feed. Soy milk is sometimes criticised for its link to deforestation, but, most of the global soy production is actually used for animal feed, rather than to produce soy milk. So soy milk isn’t really the main problem when it comes to land usage.

Across carbon emissions, water and land usage, the alternatives come out on top. Dairy has the highest emissions, and almond milk uses a lot more water than other alternatives. So, oat and soy come out as the most sustainable choice for your morning coffee.