Moving beyond negative welfare indicators toward measures of positive welfare states enables more comprehensive assessment and provides targets for welfare improvement beyond minimum standards.
Positive welfare indicator assessment challenges the welfare improvement mindset to go beyond reducing harm toward actively enabling flourishing. Animals that are free from pain, fear, and hunger but spend their lives in featureless environments with limited social and cognitive stimulation are not in good welfare even by many standards. Positive indicators — play, exploration, social bonding, positive anticipatory behaviour — measure the presence of what good welfare looks like rather than just the absence of what bad welfare looks like. Farms scoring well on positive indicators typically also score well on negative indicators, suggesting they reflect underlying welfare quality.