Environmental impact assessments routinely consider wildlife and habitat. Animal welfare impact assessment is an emerging framework that applies similar rigour to the welfare implications of policies and projects.
Animal welfare impact assessment is a practical tool for ensuring that welfare considerations are systematically integrated into decision-making rather than addressed retrospectively. Road projects that increase wildlife road mortality, agricultural subsidies that incentivise intensification, and development projects that destroy wildlife habitat all have welfare impacts that a systematic assessment framework could identify before projects proceed. Embedding welfare assessment in planning and policy processes changes the structural incentives facing decision-makers — welfare costs become visible and must be justified or mitigated rather than ignored. This is a systems-level intervention with the potential for large-scale welfare improvement.