Measuring animal welfare progress requires robust metrics and transparent reporting. Understanding how welfare is assessed at scale enables better advocacy and accountability.
Measuring animal welfare progress is essential for evidence-based advocacy and policy. Without metrics, we cannot demonstrate whether welfare is improving, identify where harms are concentrated, or hold industries accountable. The development of validated welfare assessment tools (Welfare Quality protocols, AWOA) has been a major scientific advance. The challenge is implementation: translating assessment tools into routine auditing across the full range of animals and systems affected by human activity. A national animal welfare index - tracking welfare trends across farm, companion, laboratory, and wild animals over time - would provide the accountability infrastructure that the sector currently lacks. Supporting organisations that develop and apply welfare metrics is a high-leverage welfare investment.