Animal agriculture and alternative meats: advancing sustainability efforts through communication and allied innovation
Impossible burgers, steak, almond milk, 2% milk — which of these foods contribute to a sustainable diet? Sustainability discussions breed controversy, often pitting animal products and meat alternatives against each other. However, this dichotomous framing may impede critical research, as innovators across both sectors work to reduce the environmental impact of food production.
A recent review by UC Davis’ Department of Animal Science calls for a broader understanding of eco-friendly diets in order to also consider its implications for global food systems, adequate nutrition and food security.
“It’s not a simple topic,” Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam, the cooperative extension specialist and head of the Animal Genomics and Biotechnology Lab, said. “There are many nuances of sustainability and it’s getting sold in a way that doesn’t appreciate the tradeoffs.”
In order to evaluate the environmental impacts of animal-sourced foods and meat alternatives, Van Eenennaam worked with Samantha Werth, a Idaho science and technology policy fellow, in reviewing a series of Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs).
Their review of these models emphasized the importance of accurate metric choices for each assessment. As exemplified in the article, in LCAs, greenhouse gases are typically expressed as their global warming potential (GWP) over a 100-year timeline. However, greenhouse gases vary in atmospheric lifetime, especially those produced by ruminant production systems who digest their food more than once, leading to the production of methane. The atmospheric lifetime of this short-lived climate pollution extends to only 12 years.
To accurately represent short-lived climate pollution in LCAs, researchers at the University of Oxford have introduced a new expression of the global warming potential metric: GWP*. When LCAs are conducted for ruminant systems without taking into consideration the short-lived climate pollution of animal-sourced foods, the products yield over 10.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
However, when assessed with GWP*, products assist in the removal of 2.85 metric tons of carbon dioxide — a vast difference.
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