Transforming food systems toward sustainability must integrate animal welfare alongside environmental and human health goals, as these objectives are complementary rather than competing.
The transformation of global food systems toward sustainability creates both opportunities and risks for animal welfare. Done well, food system change reduces both environmental damage and animal suffering: plant-rich diets reduce greenhouse gas emissions and eliminate animal welfare burden simultaneously; higher-welfare farming systems often show better environmental performance than intensive alternatives. Done poorly, food system transformation could intensify animal welfare problems through further intensification of "efficient" production, substitution of animal products with alternatives produced from new animal sources (insect farming at enormous scale), or implementation of environmental metrics that optimise carbon but ignore animal suffering. Integrating welfare into food system transformation frameworks — alongside environmental, nutritional, and social justice objectives — ensures that progress on sustainability genuinely serves all its stated beneficiaries.