Life Cycle Assessments affirm the Environmental Impact of Animal-based Agriculture

Global Life Cycle Assessments reveal the significant environmental toll of animal agriculture and the profound impacts and broader consequences of conventional food production.

United States | Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Reading Time : 3:45 minutes

Over the past decade, life cycle assessments (LCAs) have become essential as companies face increasing pressure to demonstrate the environmental impact of their products. Driven by the demand for transparency and stricter sustainability regulations, LCAs have become a critical tool for meeting product sustainability standards and green claims.

This trend is especially evident in the food industry, where novel products are emerging as sustainable alternatives to foods produced through traditional methods, such as animal-based agriculture, and LCAs provide a data-driven way of comparing the environmental performance of these new options.

Countless global LCAs conducted on food production demonstrate that animal-based agriculture creates profound environmental impacts, from greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water consumption, pollution and biodiversity loss. This article explores these impacts, and the far-reaching consequences of conventional food production.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Animal agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, from animal feed, land use change and farming practices (e.g., manure management), to processing and transportation. Livestock production, particularly cattle, generates methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), both potent greenhouse gases. Methane is produced during digestion in ruminants and from manure management, while nitrous oxide is released from manure and urine on pastures.¹ Livestock accounts for approximately 14.5% of global GHGs,² according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which rivals the emissions of some developed countries.

Land Use and Degradation

Producing animal-based foods requires extensive land use. Livestock farming occupies about 77% of global agricultural land yet provides only 18% of the world’s calories.¹ This disproportionate land use leads to deforestation, habitat destruction and soil degradation. Forests are often cleared to create pastures or to grow feed crops, such as soy and corn, which exacerbates carbon emissions and reduces biodiversity.² The conversion of forests to agricultural land is a major driver of deforestation in regions like the Amazon rainforest.

Water Consumption

Animal agriculture is also a major consumer of water resources. Producing animal-based foods typically requires more water than producing plant-based foods. For instance, 5,605 liters of water are required to produce 1 kg of cheese, compared to only 648 liters per kg of wheat.³ This high-water footprint is due to the water needed for feed crop irrigation, animal drinking, cleaning animal waste and processing. In many regions, this affects the availability of water for other uses and can contribute to water scarcity in regions either with limited water resources, competing water demands, or both.

Animal-based agriculture has significant environmental impact, including GHG emissions and resource depletion, underscores the urgent need for sustainable food solutions. Rigorous LCAs can help evaluate and optimize both animal-based and alternative protein sources to build a more sustainable food system.

Other Types of Pollution

The intensive nature of animal farming leads to various forms of pollution. Manure from livestock operations can contaminate soil and water bodies with nutrients, pathogens and heavy metals. This runoff can cause eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems, leading to dead zones where aquatic life cannot survive.³ Additionally, the use of fertilizers and pesticides in feed crop production contributes to soil and water pollution. Air pollution is another concern, with ammonia emissions from manure contributing to the formation of particulate matter, which can harm human health.

Environmental impacts of animal-based agriculture are extensive and well-documented in a large body of published LCAs. From GHG emissions and land degradation to water consumption and pollution, producing animal-based foods poses significant challenges to environmental sustainability. Addressing these challenges requires a multifaceted approach, which starts with evaluating the environmental impacts of animal-based products using LCAs to make informed decisions. This same rigorous methodology can then be applied to plant-based and cell-based alternatives to ensure that they are more environmentally sustainable than the products they could displace in the diets of humans all over the world.

LCAs performed on novel food products must account for uncertainties from using secondary data and assumptions. To make informed decisions about the sustainability of alternative meats, it is important to scrutinize the data and methodologies used with these assessments. Increased transparency and independent verification are key to building a more reliable evidence base and ensuring alternative meats contribute to a sustainable food system.

WSP recently supported the XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion competition by evaluating the environmental impacts of novel food products developed by the participating teams. During the Finals Round of the competition, which wrapped in the fall 2024, WSP conducted screening-level LCAs to assess sustainability. This article is the first of a three-part series exploring the intersection of food and environmental sustainability. As an official testing partner of XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion, WSP is part of the multi-year, $15M competition that incentivizes teams to create chicken and fish alternatives that replicate or outperform conventional versions in terms of accessibility, sustainability, animal welfare, nutrition, taste and texture.