Scientists have believed for some time now that embracing a reduced-meat diet is key to tackling climate change, claiming that opting for mostly plant-based foods is essential if we want to help manage water shortages and pollution levels. But new research has turned these findings into a quantifiable measure of how you can help do your bit – and it’s a simple as giving up red meat one meal a week.

According to new scientific data analysis, if everyone in the UK swapped just one red meat meal to a plant-based meal per week, it would cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 50 million tonnes – which is the equivalent of taking 16 million cars off the road – resulting in up to an 8.4% reduction in the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

The analysis was undertaken on behalf of The Meatless Farm Co by Joseph Poore, lead author of a recent global study on the environmental impacts of food, to calculate the environmental benefits of changing diets in Britain.

He compared red meat meals versus their plant-based equivalents, analysing everything from production on the farm and lifecycle environmental impacts to energy use and transportation throughout the supply chain. Poore also looked at the meals’ packaging, and food loss and waste at each stage of the process, as well as the carbon benefits from trees re-growing on the land no longer required to produce meat.

This is the terrifying reason we should all eat one more vegan meal a week