US Beef’s Carbon Footprint Varies a Lot From City to City

Oct. 20, 2025, 4:05 PM UTC

Beef is notoriously bad for the environment. Just how bad depends a lot on where in the US you eat it.

The carbon footprint of a burger is bigger in Houston than San Francisco, and in Dallas compared with Chicago, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change on Monday.

The authors, who mapped livestock supply chains from feed to grocery store, found the biggest influence on beef’s greenhouse gas emissions was the type of cows the meat was sourced from. How far the meat traveled was only a minor source.

Of the 3,500 or so cities the researchers examined, ...

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