Navigating the Safe Operating Space with Novel Plant-based Meat and Dairy Alternatives
Marta Kozicka
International institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
“Even moderate switch away from meat and dairy to plant-based alternatives could lead to major benefits across multiple environmental goals”
There is a growing understanding that in order to meet climate change mitigation targets, achieve health and food security objectives worldwide, and keep natural resource use within planetary boundaries, a profound food system transformation that includes adoption of diets low in animal source foods is needed (Willett et al., 2019). This need will become increasingly pressing in the future.
Novel foods, such as novel plant-based meat and milk alternatives, have the potential to reduce animal source foods consumption without necessitating significant changes to dietary habits. These are foods made from plants, mycelium, or other non-animal-based ingredients, but developed to mimic the taste and consistency of animal products. Despite their novelty, they have established a foothold in many households around the world, especially in North America and Europe. Some projections estimate that the size of the plant-based meat market could grow exponentially until 2030 and comprise 25% of the global meat market by 2040 (Gerhardt et al., 2020).
The evidence suggests that novel plant-based alternatives have much lower environmental footprint as compared to their animal source equivalents in terms of reduced GHGs emissions, water and land us (Goldstein et al., 2017). They could also contribute to the global environmental and social objectives in scenarios of large-scale adoption by means of reduced meat consumption (Mason-D'Croz et al., 2022; Humpenöder et al., 2022; Frezal, Nenert and Gay, 2022). Our study brought these two perspectives together by quantifying system-wide impacts of a global or regional substitution of the main animal source foods (pork, chicken, beef and dairy) with novel plant-based alternatives taking into account natural resources needed to produce them.
First, we introduced sets of hypothetical plant-based ‘recipes’, designed to be nutritionally equivalent to the original animal-derived products (ensuring macro- and micro-nutrient profile- and protein quality-equivalency). Next, we selected realistic ingredients that could feasibly be produced within existing food manufacturing capabilities and for global production (to balance global and regional abundance). Further, we developed an array of forward-looking scenarios of dietary changes until 2050 representing different aspects of possible novel plant-based alternatives’ market development. The substitution is defined in the scenarios along six different gradients: regional scope, product and ‘recipe’ selection, sourcing of the ingredients, processing efficiency, and the degree of substitution. The latter ranges from 10%, trough 25% and 50%, up to 90%. The reduction starts in the year 2030 and it is applied linearly to achieve the maximum level by the year 2050.
We analyzed these scenarios using an economic model that integrates global agriculture, bioenergy, and forestry sectors and facilitates exploration of the potential for the carbon sink and biodiversity restoration under additional land-use policy measures. This enabled further investigation of the full environmental benefit of diet shifts that would be achieved if the agricultural land spared from livestock and feed production within forests is restored using biodiversity-friendly management.
We started with a reference (REF) scenario to project dietary developments globally, using country-level characteristics of food demand based on consumer preferences. We then explored the global impacts of the dietary change on various indicators that can be directly mapped to the planetary boundaries (Rockström et al., 2009; in brackets): GHG emissions (climate change), land-use (land system change), biodiversity (biosphere integrity), nitrogen inputs (biochemical flows), and water use (freshwater change). Additionally, we assessed the impacts on socio-economic indicators, such as food prices and food security.
We found that substituting 50% of animal protein consumption would substantially reduce the mounting impacts of food systems on the natural environment by 2050 observed in the reference scenario (Figure 1). As compared to 2020, global agricultural area would decline by 12% instead of expanding. The decline in areas of forest and other natural land would be almost completely halted. Nitrogen inputs to cropland, as compared to 2020, would nearly half of the reference projections. Water use would also decline by 10% instead of increasing. Without accounting for any carbon sequestration on spared land, GHG emissions could decline by 2.1 gigatons (Gt) of CO2 equivalent (CO2 eq) per year (year-1), a 31% reduction, in 2050 (on average by 1.6 Gt CO2eq year-1 in 2020-2050). Finally, global undernourishment would decline to 3.6%, as compared to 3.8% in the reference scenario, reducing the number of undernourished people by 31 million.
Figure 1. Global environmental impacts in 2050 across scenarios (REF, 10%, 25%, 50% and 90% substitution globally). Scenarios assume global substitution scope, all products, free trade sourcing, inefficient processing. The top part of the panel (a-d) depicts results of the dietary change alone, while the bottom part (e-f) shows the impacts of implemented land restoration on the abandoned agricultural land. Land restoration was modeled as afforestation only within former forest ecosystems and with locally naturally occurring tree species.
If the agricultural land spared from livestock and feed production is restored through afforestation with biodiversity-friendly management, the benefits already achieved through reduced land use emissions without such measure could even multiply. In the 50% substitution scenario, this would result in total of 6.3 Gt CO2eq year-1 of the total agriculture and land use emissions reduction. The 90% substitution would increase the mitigation potential of total agriculture and land use emissions to 11.1 Gt CO2eq year-1 in 2050. The restoration of forest ecosystems would also improve biodiversity. The 50% substitution would decrease future declines in ecosystem integrity by 2050 by more than half. Furthermore, the restored area could contribute to 13-25% of the estimated global land restoration needs by 2030, on a pathway to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity (target 2 from the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework). In the 90% scenario, biodiversity loss could be even reversed between 2030 and 2040.
Impacts across regions would differ due to the differences in the population size and diets, unequal agricultural productivity, and participation in international trade of agricultural commodities. The main impacts on agricultural input use are in China and on environmental outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa and South America. We also found that even though a global introduction of all novel plant-based alternatives has additional benefits compared to the scenarios with the limited product or geographical scope, regional substitution of individual products might be also highly effective in achieving particular objectives, especially if combined with regional strategies and purposeful selection of the ‘recipes’. For example, substitution of beef in Brazil and its main export regions could significantly reduce deforestation rates and release land for reforestation. Combined with specific initiatives to incentivize reforestation on these abandoned grazing lands would increase the chances of achieving large-scale climate change mitigation benefits from dietary shifts in this country.
In conclusion, our results show that a novel food-driven dietary shift towards reduced consumption of meat and dairy in combination with adequate land-use policy measures can offer a viable pathway for a significant improvement in outcomes related to five out of six planetary boundaries that are currently transgressed (Richardson et al., 2023): biosphere integrity, climate change, freshwater change, land system change and biochemical flows. This could be a powerful tool to help us return to safe operating space.
Photo 1. The interdisciplinary research group has assembled experts from diverse institutions, including the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, University of Vermont, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Impossible Foods, USAID, and VU University Amsterdam. This collaborative effort harnesses expertise from multiple sectors, spanning academia, industry, and governmental organizations, to address pressing global sustainability challenges.
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