How I made my pets more environmentally friendly

Pets may be beloved of the family – but research shows their upkeep can have a significant impact on the environment. Is it impossible to reduce their carbon paw print?

Lying on the living room floor, our enormous black Labrador Barney closes his eyes in bliss, never happier than when surrounded by the chaos of family life. Barney is a gentle giant – not far off the size of a Shetland pony – and often finds himself at the bottom of a "puppy pile" underneath our three children, Billy (10), Sammy (8) and Sophie (3). And when he's not snoozing he's either zooming about the garden like a loon or bounding through muddy fields with me as we train for our next trail run. Barney's other great pleasure in life is food – and a five-year-old, 33kg (73lb), active dog like Barney has quite an appetite – getting through around 2kg (4.4lb) of dry dog food every week.

Barney is one of six animals that live with us, alongside our cat Sookie, and four chickens. Sookie is a 13-year-old rescue moggie. She terrorises the dog, refuses to come in at night, then turns up in the morning covered in scratches. She is one hardy old lady. The chickens, meanwhile, are peaceful animals, happy scratching about in the mud, or snuggling in the coop.

Pets may be beloved of the family – but research shows they can have a significant impact on the environment. I am constantly aware of my own environmental impact and this influences my choices. But when it comes to my pets, this isn't a thought at the forefront of my mind. So, how can I keep my animals in a more sustainable way?

I decided to take a look at each of my animals' diets and accessories to see if I could switch anything out to make my pets less of a burden on the environment.  

Global pet populations are on the rise, with likely over a billion worldwide. The most popular is man's best friend – with almost 70 million dogs in the United States alone. That's a lot of poo bags, squeaky toys and food.

Roughly 35 million tonnes of dry pet food was produced around the world last year. Of this an estimated 5.9 million tonnes of dry pet food is given to cats while dogs consume around 20.8 million tonnes.

Both dogs and cats eat meat. Compared to a plant-based diet, meat requires more energy, land and water to produce, and has greater environmental consequences in of erosion, pesticides and waste. University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers calculated that meat-eating by dogs and cats in the US alone creates the equivalent of about 64 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year – roughly the same climate impact as driving 12.5 million cars for a whole year. Another paper by researchers at the University of Edinburgh also calculated that every year an area double the size of the UK is needed to produce dry food for the world's cats and dogs.