This is not a definitive list, but here are some of the ways we’ve heard of advocates using this data:
1. Welfare-Informed Alt Protein R&D Decisions
Many alt-protein companies — those exclusively focusing on plant-based or cultivated animal product substitutes — are motivated by animal protection, just as advocates in volunteer or nonprofit roles are. To help animals, we need to reduce consumer demand for animal products, and a big part of that is providing people with alternatives they’re willing and able to buy.
Deciding on your first or next alt product is a multi-pronged decision, including everything from feasibility of production, to consumer appeal, to whether there’s a market gap to fill. And any new product may help shift at least a few more people away from animal products, but using our scales is one way to determine where the biggest potential impacts for animals are.
You might want to focus on creating a delicious, affordable substitute for one of the products most responsible for loss of animal lives, or one of the most responsible for animal suffering. Or you might already have a focus area for your company, like pork alternatives or dairy alternatives, so you might want to focus next on the highest-impact product in your category for lives or suffering.
2. Welfare-Informed Investment Decisions
While most animal advocates don’t work in the alt protein sector, some make an impact for animals through donations or even investments. Advice similar to the above applies: These folks might want to support or invest in companies that are working on products responsible for a large number of animal lives or a lot of animal suffering. Alternatively, if there are particular issue areas in your region or market gaps you want to help fill, you could look to support companies working on products in that category that could save a lot of animal lives or days of suffering.
3. Estimate The Animal Impact Of Green Government Policies — Or Animal Advocacy Campaign
Many federal, state, and local governments have committed to more climate-friendly, plant-based initiatives over the past decade. Our scales have been used to inform plant-based initiatives and procurement policies in several major U.S. cities.
While the focus of these laws and resolutions is often on mitigating the climate impact of diet, you may be able to demonstrate or even shape their additional benefit of reducing animal harm.
For this type of work you’ll likely need more than the top 10s or top 3s, so you may want to download the full lists from our project page on the Open Science Framework. Depending on the data available, this kind of estimate may require some additional calculations, so feel free to reach out to our research team for support.
We recently conducted a thorough process tracing exercise about how this resource impacted decision-making at Anima International, a major animal advocacy org, and led them to shifting their strategy. We encourage you to check it out for further insight on how this tool can be used in practical decision making at the org level.
4. Reduce The Harm Of Your Own Diet
These scales can be eye-opening for individuals in terms of their own dietary impact as well. Even a single person can affect many animals in a year, let alone over the course of a lifetime. I love it whenever someone tells me that they’ve changed their diet based on the numbers these scales show.
If you’re a reducetarian or thinking of becoming one, which products are you cutting out first? A lot of people tend to start with “red meat” products because they’ve heard that pigs are as smart as dogs or that cow farts are a huge contributor to climate change. Whatever your reasons, the number of sentient creatures affected by your choices are hard to ignore.
If you’re looking for your next product to cut, you might want to take a look at which products harm the most animals: which ones are associated with the most suffering per serving, or which ones provide the fewest servings per life.
And on the flip side, if you’re someone who says “I could go vegan if it weren’t for ________,” where the blank might be bacon or cheese or donuts, these scales can help there too. Check our lists for that one thing—or handful of things—you feel you couldn’t go without. If it’s not on the top 3 lists for suffering or lives, you might have to download the full spreadsheet to find the specific numbers.
How many animals does that one (or two or three) product affect? Now, how does that compare to the number of animals affected by every other product on the list added together? You’ll see that going “vegan except for ______” can still have a huge positive impact on animals. Being “veganish” is harder to explain to others, but it might be the right step for you.
