Just thought I’d share a reference that may be useful when quantifying the animal welfare impact of pet food—it quantifies environmental impacts taking into account the effect of pet food purchases incentivising keeping more livestock, and it seems to me like a similar approach could be used to quantify animal welfare impacts.
That study has several substantial flaws discussed in my 2023 study. It substantially underestimates the environmental impacts of pet food. This is partly discussed in my recent post.
Just thought I’d share a reference that may be useful when quantifying the animal welfare impact of pet food—it quantifies environmental impacts taking into account the effect of pet food purchases incentivising keeping more livestock, and it seems to me like a similar approach could be used to quantify animal welfare impacts.
Alexander et al., 2020, “The global environmental paw print of pet food”, Global Environmental Change, 65, 102153, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102153 . Here’s a free-to-access version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17dpVo9QByHpe0NxyHUiR2VfYRnhLs71X/view
That study has several substantial flaws discussed in my 2023 study. It substantially underestimates the environmental impacts of pet food. This is partly discussed in my recent post.