Cost-effectiveness of School Plates

Summary

  • School Plates is a program aiming to increase the consumption of plant-based foods at schools and universities in the United Kingdom (UK).

  • I Fermi estimate corporate campaigns for chicken welfare are 25.1 times as cost-effective as School Plates, but that this is still 60.2 times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities.

Context

One of these days, I was wondering about the cost-effectiveness of the program Prato Sustentável from Associação Vegetariana Portuguesa (in English, program Sustainable Plate from the Portuguese Vegetarian Association), which aims to increase the consumption of plant-based foods at schools and universities. In the process of trying to find analogues, I came across School Plates, which is a program of ProVeg UK (part of ProVeg International) that is seemingly regarded as successful in advancing that intervention (in the UK).

In this post, I Fermi estimate their cost-effectiveness, and compare it with that of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare, which are considered amongst the best animal welfare interventions. The calculations are below, and also in this Sheet.

Cost-effectiveness of School Plates

The meat supply to households in the UK in 2021 was 82.3 kg/​person, i.e. the same as the meat consumption of 82.3 kg/​person (= 100.33 − 18.07), so I assume the meat supply to households by type of meat equals the meat consumption by type of meat. This was as follows in 2021:

  • For poultry, 34.1 kg/​person.

  • For beef, 18.0 kg/​person.

  • For sheep and goat, pork and other meats, 30.1 kg/​person (= 3.64 + 25.3 + 1.16).

  • For fish and seafood, 18.1 kg/​person. However, for farmed fish and seafood in 2020, only 3.29 kg/​person (= 221*10^6/​(67.1*10^6)).

I convert the above to animal living time based on data from Faunalytics. I use:

  • Chicken’s 28.7 d/​kg for poultry.

  • Beef’s 3.09 d/​kg for beef.

  • Pork’s 2.24 d/​kg for sheep and goat, pork and other meats.

  • Fish’s 82.1 d/​kg for farmed fish and seafood.

So I get the following animal living times for the annual food consumption in the UK:

  • For poultry, 2.68 year/​person (= 34.1*28.7/​365.25).

  • For beef, 0.152 year/​person (= 18.0*3.09/​365.25).

  • For sheep and goat, pork and other meats, 0.185 year/​person (= 30.1*2.24/​365.25).

  • For farmed fish and seafood, 0.740 year/​person (= 3.29*82.1/​365.25).

I adjust the above for capacity to experience suffering based on Rethink Priorities’ median welfare ranges:

  • Chickens’ 0.332 for poultry.

  • Pigs’ 0.515 for beef, sheep and goat, pork and other meats.

  • Carp’s 0.089 for farmed fish and seafood.

Therefore I obtain the suffering-adjusted animal living times:

  • For poultry, 0.890 year/​person (= 2.68*0.332). In addition, for eggs, I arrived at 0.198 year/​person (= 0.890*0.223) based on the population of laying hens being 22.3 % (= 41.0*10^6/​(184*10^6)) of the population of poultry birds in the UK in 2018.

  • For beef, 0.0783 year/​person (= 0.152*0.515).

  • For sheep and goat, pork and other meats, 0.0953 year/​person (= 0.185*0.515).

  • For farmed fish and seafood, 0.0659 year/​person (= 0.740*0.089).

  • For all, 1.33 year/​person (= 0.890 + 0.198 + 0.0783 + 0.0953 + 0.0659). Ideally, I would adjust for the quality of the living conditions of the different species.

Each person has 730 meals per year (= 2*365.25) respecting lunches and dinners, which I guess result in 75 % of the animal living time. So I determined a suffering-adjusted animal living time per meal in the UK of 0.00137 year (= 1.33*0.75/​730), or 0.500 d (= 0.00137*365.25).

According to Colette Fox, head of School Plates, this swapped 12.4 M meals to meat-free in 2023 at a cost of 155 k£, i.e. 192 k$ (= 155*10^3*1.24). Consequently, the cost per additional meat-free meal in 2023 was 0.0155 $ (= 192*10^3/​(12.4*10^6)). Sarah expects this to decrease in the future. Jimmy Pierson, director of ProVeg UK, mentioned the cost in 2023 was 63 % than in 2023, and that the impact in 2023 was 102 % higher than in 2022, which imply the cost per additional meat-free meal in 2023 was 80.7 % (= (1 + 0.63)/​(1 + 1.02)) that in 2022. I take this to mean diminishing returns have not kicked in much yet, and therefore suppose the marginal cost-effectiveness is the same as the one in 2023. So I arrive at a marginal cost per additional meat-free meal of 0.0155 $.

Jimmy also clarified meat-free meals are not plant-based “because of a small amount of dairy cheese. It’s very rarely, if ever, a result of eggs in the meal”. Having this in mind, for simplicity, I assume meat-free meals are as good as plant-based ones. As a result, I calculate a marginal cost-effectiveness in terms of decreasing suffering-adjusted living time of 0.0884 year/​$ (= 0.00137/​0.0155).

Comparison with corporate campaigns for chicken welfare and GiveWell’s top charities

Saulius estimated corporate campaigns for chicken welfare affect 41 years of living time per $. Open Philanthropy thinks “the marginal FAW [farmed animal welfare] funding opportunity is ~1/​5th as cost-effective as the average from Saulius’ analysis”. As a consequence, I determine current corporate campaigns for chicken welfare affect 8.20 years of living time per $ (= 415).

Adjusting the above for chicken’s capacity to experience suffering, and supposing the improved conditions are 18.3 % as bad as the initial ones, as I estimated for moving broilers from a conventional to a reformed scenario, I conclude the cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for chicken welfare in terms of decreasing suffering-adjusted living time is 2.22 year/​$ (= 8.20*0.332*(1 − 0.183)). This suggests such campaigns are 25.1 (= 2.22/​0.0884) times as cost-effective as School Plates.

I calculated the aforementioned campaigns are 1.51 k times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities. This plus the above point towards School Plates being 60.2 (= 1.51*10^3/​25.1) times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Colette Fox for feedback on the draft. Thanks to Colette, Jimmy Pierson and Sarah Morton, analyst of School Plates, for providing information about the cost and impact of School Plates. Thanks to Jimmy for clarifying that meat-free meals very rarely, if ever, have eggs.