The model, running

Every swap takes an animal off a plate.

0.0animal livesnot raised, not slaughtered≈ 0.0 animal-days of life

0kg CO₂eemissions never released

0litres of waterleft in the system

One card is one swap: a 150 g portion of meat, replaced with plant-based. Numbers here are a simulation of the network running, not swaps already made.

The lever

Now give it a hundred thousand people.

Drag it. Same per-swap figures as above, multiplied — nothing else changes.

100,000people with plant-based mode switched on

1,00010,000100,0001,000,000

—animal-years of life a month—

— animal lives a month · —

each mark is one life chicken pig cow

—litres of water a month—

— Olympic swimming pools, every month—

—tonnes CO₂e a month—

would have reached the air held back—

We deliberately use the smaller figures: dairy-herd beef rather than beef-herd, and cars’ full life-cycle emissions rather than the tailpipe alone.

Assuming each person acceptsswaps a month.

—

How this is counted. One swap is a 150 g portion measured against the meat Germans actually eat — 54% pork, 28% poultry, 18% beef — replaced with a plant-based equivalent. Two of our choices make the numbers smaller rather than larger: we use dairy-herd beef at 33.3 kg CO₂e per kg rather than beef-herd at 99.5, and life-cycle rather than tailpipe emissions for the car comparison. The water figures are total footprints, so most of that volume is rainwater. Animal-days add up each animal’s days of life: 37 for a chicken, while 182 for a pig and 550 for cattle are working assumptions until we have a primary source.

Emissions: Poore & Nemecek, Science 360 (2018). Water: Mekonnen & Hoekstra, Ecosystems 15 (2012). Consumption mix: Bundesinformationszentrum Landwirtschaft, 2025. Animal lives: ProVeg Incubator edible-yield method, Eurostat carcass weights. Chicken lifespan: Frontiers in Veterinary Science (2022), 107 German Ross 308 flocks. Cars: ICCT (2025). Household water: German Federal Environment Ministry. Full workings available on request.