Can carbon credits promote welfare for livestock and wild animals?

When you buy carbon credits, do you ever think about the impact of the project on animal welfare? In this article, I outline where such considerations may arise and give a plea for you to consider animal welfare in your buying decision.

Executive Summary

• Different methods exist to improve the sequestration of carbon or reduce methane from the raising of cattle and other animals. Some methods achieve carbon credits as incentives. These incentives are much needed as the value chain around domesticated animals makes up 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
• Animal welfare must be a pre-requisite for any ethical and sustainable animal production system to be a socially defensible and acceptable climate change solution. We must ensure that solutions that help fight climate change are not developed at the expense of other issues we should care about; that the animals that are impacted by these methods are treated well.?We must care about the welfare of other sentient beings.
• Today, strategies for transforming the beef industry focus on how we can change a cow and its environment to optimide for climate change mitigation. Perhaps this is well-meaning, but such practices treat animals as machines that can be optimised without any focus on the animals' welfare.
• Carbon credit generating methods today such as rotational grazing have the potential to reduce animal welfare. While ways to reduce methane – such as the use of Bovaer – have the potential to generate credits, they have not yet been fully tested in terms of the impact of animal welfare.
• Renewable energy projects, when ill-designed, can create conflicts with wildlife through encroachment of high conservation areas and, in the case of wind, the killing of birds in large numbers.?The point is not to be dogmatic and stop this important development, but to consider these impacts in the design.??
• Sadly, animal welfare (for domesticated animals) has little prominence in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGd). It has no separate SDG, and is hence often not considered a “co-benefit” in the analysis of carbon credits.?
• There is no mention of animal rights in the CORSIA Not Net Harm provisioning.
• Few, if any, quality assessments of carbon credits (by rating agencies or corporates) consider animal welfare as a component of the “co benefits”.?My hope is that they increasingly will.? As so often we must balance the positive and negative externalities of climate change solutions with being dogmatic.? But we must at least think of animal welfare as an important consideration.?? Animal Welfare should not be a secondary consideration when we make decisions.?When we, through our actions, harm other sentient beings, we ought to remember that these fellow animals enrich our lives and that we have the means to destroy their welfare or to preserve it.? The choice should be obvious.

Livestock is responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is mostly due to deforestation for pasture and feed production, as well as methane emitted from cow burps and manure. They also contribute to 65% of ammonia emissions. Different methods exist to improve the sequestration of carbon or reduce methane from the raising of cattle and other animals. Some generate carbon credits as incentives, which are much needed. ?

Animal welfare must be prerequisite for any ethical and sustainable animal production system to be a socially defensible and acceptable climate change solution. We must ensure that solutions that help combat global warming are not developed at the expense of other issues we should care about – and that animals impacted by these methods are treated well.

(1) Rotational Grazing

?Rotational grazing involves the frequent movement of cattle through a series of pasture subdivisions.?? Doing so improves the soil structure, organic matter and hence carbon sequestration. ?A methodology exists under which carbon credits can be generated and there are projects that issue credits today.

?Grazing is a natural behaviour of ruminants and is therefore vital to their welfare. It reduces lameness and mastitis, and improves longevity and behaviour. Rotational grazing does not, in general, reduce these benefits (when compared to farm animals) and it offers defence from predators. However, if poorly implemented, it can create challenges when the pastures do not contain all elements needed for the animals (e.g. water source or uneven nutrition), or where it allows for the spreading of parasites or diseases. Lack of shade is another problem, as well as ruminal tympany (bloating), which is a common and potentially fatal problem when cattle graze on fresh, young pasture.

?Good projects can avoid some of the above-mentioned problems and become a win for both climate change and animal welfare. What we as users of carbon credits should do is ensure that we care enough to ask such questions when we evaluate the quality of a project.

?It saddens me to read an article like “3 key strategies for transforming the beef industry”, which focuses on how we can change a cow and its environment to optimise for climate change mitigation. Perhaps well-meaning, but it treats animals as machines that can be optimised with zero focus on their welfare.

?(2) Food Additives (Bovaer)

?When cattle digest food, methane is created and released through burping. The amount is significant, constituting 37% of anthropogenic methane emissions. Using feed supplement such as Bovaer is shown to reduce enteric methane emissions by around 44-50%, while maintaining milk production and composition. Carbon credit methodologies have been developed and credits are being sold.

The challenge is that animals must have access to the feed containing the additive throughout the day. There are techniques under development to address this; but until solutions are found, using bovaer means keeping cows locked in often over-crowded barns and restricting them from their natural behaviours outdoors. Anybody who has seen a cow “jump for joy” when they are first released onto a grass field will have an intuitive sense of why keeping animals locked up affects their welfare.

Another concern is that in the same way we thoroughly test human supplements before we release them for sale, we must do the same for supplements like bovear. For example, does eating bovaer affect the digestion (constipation) of cattle or create ulcers? This testing is incomplete and yet the supplements are already in use – all in the name of reducing emissions.

(3) Renewable Energy

?Carbon credits are still being generated from renewable energy projects. Extraction of different types of renewable energy has varying direct and indirect effects on wildlife.

When ill-designed, renewable energy projects can create conflicts with wildlife. One problem is that it often requires land and can lead to infrastructure fragmenting or even eliminating high-quality wildlife habitat. Wind energy can kill raptors, and other birds and bats. Solar energy presents threats to wildlife primarily through indirect effects linked to habitat fragmentation and loss. This can be mitigated partly by focusing on building on least-conflict areas and leveraging a responsible, practical and proactive approach to renewable energy development.

Nevertheless, it is not possible to fully eliminate these impacts. The point is not to be dogmatic and stop the important scale-up of renewable energy, but we must – when at all realistically possible – find solutions that limit such implications. Ultimately, a balanced solution is needed.

?Final thoughts

Sadly, animal welfare (for domesticated animals) has little prominence in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is hence not often considered a “co-benefit” in the analysis of carbon credits. There is also no mention of animal rights in CORSIA’s Not Net Harm provisioning, which ICVCM refers to. It only features sporadically in project developers’ descriptions of their initiatives.

Focus is largely on applicable laws (which in theory could include animal cruelty) and environmental and social safeguards. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that few, if any, quality assessments of carbon credits by rating agencies or corporate buyers consider animal welfare as a component of a project’s core benefits.

My hope is that we will increasingly see animal welfare more explicitly covered in discussions around the quality of carbon credits. Animal welfare should not be a secondary consideration when we make decisions. When have the power to harm other sentient beings through our actions, we ought to remember that these fellow animals enrich our lives and that we have the means to destroy their welfare or to preserve it. The choice should be obvious.