Animal Welfare and the Circular Economy: Reducing Harm in Resource Systems

Circular economy principles aim to eliminate waste and keep resources in productive use. Applying these principles to animal agriculture and food systems can reduce welfare harm while improving resource efficiency.

Key Facts

Industrial animal agriculture generates enormous quantities of waste including manure, carcasses, and processing byproducts
Circular approaches including biogas from manure, insect protein from food waste, and composting reduce waste-related pollution
Reducing animal product consumption reduces the total resource input and waste output of food systems proportionately
By-product use including leather from beef hides is sometimes used to justify continued animal farming on efficiency grounds
Insects raised on food waste convert low-value organic material to high-protein animal feed with lower welfare footprint than conventional feed fish
True circular economy thinking challenges the assumption that animals must be part of resource loops

Welfare Considerations

Circular economy frameworks applied to animal agriculture can reduce some welfare harms — less water pollution, lower antibiotic use in better-managed systems — but they can also be used to justify continued intensive animal farming as resource-efficient. The welfare assessment of circular agriculture must focus on the welfare of the animals in the system, not just the resource flows. Insect production raised on food waste has a potentially lower welfare footprint than conventional livestock if insect sentience is weighted appropriately. The most radical circular economy application to food systems is reducing or eliminating animal agriculture from resource loops entirely, replacing it with directly consumed plant proteins.

What You Can Do

Support circular economy approaches to food waste that reduce animal farming inputs rather than justify existing systems
Engage with circular economy advocates about the welfare dimensions of their frameworks
Support insect-based food waste processing as a potentially lower welfare-footprint alternative to conventional feed production
Reduce food waste in your own household to reduce demand for resource-intensive food systems broadly
Advocate for food system policy that applies circular economy principles to reducing animal product demand rather than just improving production efficiency