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  • Giulia Basana

Could alternative proteins help cut livestock carbon dioxide emissions?

Updated: Apr 26, 2020

Studies and campaigns have suggested that the meat production industry highly contributes to the current climate crisis. While reducing greenhouse gas emissions look like the most obvious solution, testing alternative forms of proteins such as edible insects, peas and seaweed could surprisingly turn the tables


Edible seaweed is gaining popularity. Credits to: Wolfgang Hasselmann

Contrary to popular belief, red meat is not ruining your health. Its production, on the opposite side, could destroy one quarter of the world’s tropical land by the end of the century.

A set of studies conducted by the University of Edinburgh and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, analysed the impact of meat consumption on biodiverse regions – areas of the planet with a variety of mammals, birds, amphibians and plant life. The findings suggest that the rapid increase in meat and milk production result in sharp rises in land clearing in tropical regions that host high levels of biodiversity.

As the total global consumption of animal proteins could increase by around 70 percent by 2030, finding alternative proteins to sustain a growing population is at stake.

Meat and dairy production is associated with higher land and water use and it produces the highest quantity of greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, the growth in meat production, which increased by almost 16 percent between 1990 and 2016, followed by a rise by 13 percent in consumption, has placed a burden on the planet’s biological balance as more and more natural sources, including animals, are demanded.

However, the problem doesn’t exclusively lie in meat production, but also in the safeguard of millions of workplaces. It is estimated that the number of people who are directly employed in the farming sector is less than 2 percent in the UK, which doesn’t seem a strong figure compared to the amount of food that exits farms every day. Yet by looking at the number of people employed in the meat sector, which has now rooted in agribusiness companies, retails and even the entertainment, the figure skyrockets. The meat industry in fact counts more than 3.8 million employers in the UK, 1 in 8 of the national workforce.

In terms of consumption, meat is currently the most-consumed food in three continents: Europe, North America and Oceania. According to data from Our World in Data, the average person in Europe consumes nearly 80 kilos of meat a year, while the average American eats 110 kilos. With all this consumption, the meat lobby has become a deep-rooted business which is not going to be easily defeated.

But as the call for meat is growing louder and louder, environmental activists are not sitting back. With new movements and strikes, climate advocates have managed to involve both the general public and the people with power. It is not strange then that each party in the UK has proposed a long list of measures to tackle climate change and environmental campaigns are gaining more and more support.

Moreover, the European Union is expecting to spend 21 percent of its budget (approximately £141 billion) to address global warming issues. Horizon 2020, the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme, will receive £919.2 million boost with the aim of specifically researching and assessing new or alternative protein sources for food and animal feed which are produced sustainably. The project, in the long run, aims to build a sustainable food sector that significantly reduces its footprints in terms of land use, greenhouse emissions, energy and water.

But what is already out there?

An obvious solution: cutting emissions, but how achievable is that?


Credits to: Marcin Jozwiak

A study published by the American Chemical Society evaluated several strategies that could reduce environmental effects of meat production. These include eating animals from “nose to tail” and finding uses for slaughtering and processing byproducts, which make up 44 percent of the meat entering the slaughtering stage. The study takes Germany as an example and analyses the country’s production of beef, pork and poultry in all its steps.

The findings suggest that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved by increasing the efficiency of animal feed production and the disposal of byproducts. Eliminating meat waste in retailing, homes and restaurants and reducing the consumption of meat as a whole are also alternative suggestions. Combining all of these strategies greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 43 percent.

But how realistic is the target?

“The problem needs to be seen as a whole,” says environmental scientist Matthew Shribman, founder of the organisation #NoBeef, which encourages institution to remove meat from their menus. “Reducing emissions is not an ambitious target but the problem arises when farms decide to exploit more and more land.”

As animals take land and so does their food, there is less and less space available for forests, which are the lungs of the planet.

“Without trees converting carbon dioxide, which is expelled by industries, into oxygen we breathe, I don’t see a bright future,” Shribman says. “We need to get rid of farmland and convert it into forest.”

Shribman explains that an area almost three times the size of Germany is used for soy production and 80 percent of it is used to feed cattle, pigs, chicken and even farmed fish. Soy production is predominantly based in North and South America where, in order to fulfil the large demand, the rainforest and other forested lands are cleared down.

The world’s forests absorb up to 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions and without the oxygen that trees release, life would be put at risk. Shribman also adds that greenhouse gas emissions have been cut by 57.6 percent from 2005 to 2016, but farmland has expanded by 30 percent in the same decade.

“There are some alternative solutions from the ones proposed by the American Chemical Society, and these come straight from nature,” Shribman says. “Insects for example are both a natural protein source for animals and humans and they also consume a variety of organic waste streams.”

Insects, no longer a taboo?


Credits to: Max Kleinen

Within western culture, entomophagy (insect-eating) is still seen as a taboo, but as the potential benefits become more widely known this could soon change. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that almost two billion people have edible insects in their diet. The global insect market is projected to grow at 24.4 percent yearly over the next decade and hit the sales with £6.3 billion by 2030.

Insects are a great source of high-quality protein, fats, minerals and vitamins and with over 2,000 different edible insect species worldwide, there is plenty of offer for each region of the planet. Starred chefs have already mastered the practice of using edible insects as ingredients in their menus, while start-ups and new businesses are testing the field.

Operating inside historic railway arches close to London’s Tower Bridge, there is a cosy and, most unusual, indoor ‘farm’ which hosts a herd of thousands of black soldier fly larvae.

The urban enterprise, called Entocycle, is led by a team of scientists, engineers, entomologists and creators who all share the same goal: to use the power of these tiny insects to fix the industrial food production system.

There is a reason why Entocycle chose black soldier fly larvae among all insects:

“Black soldiers flies were once used by Native American warriors to clean their wounds after a battle,” says Matthew Simmonds chief technical officer at Entocycle. “In a sense, the company is doing something similar, helping to heal the wounds of the planet with this alternative protein.”

The production revolves around harvesting black soldier flies and combining pioneering technologies which make the insects not only edible for animals and humans but also useful in composting.

“Unnecessary food waste is another big issue,” Simmonds says. “If you think about the tale of the food in your plate, from farming, processing and distribution, you realise that throwing in the bin the 30 percent of it – which is what we are doing globally - is just dreadful.”

With these problems in mind, Entocyle was able to perfectly combine the edibility of the larvae and what they would eat.

“Worms usually would eat waste from nature, like rotten apples. So why not feed our larvae with the food waste we produce?” Simmonds says. “The black soldier flies are fed on locally sourced beer and coffee waste and consume 1.5 tons of it every week. They also excrete soil which could be used as potential fertilizer.”

While the idea of ingesting insects might not suit everybody, Entocycle has developed a farming system which is totally sustainable. Although Simmonds is aware that Entocycle’s work is not likely to replace traditional farming, he hopes new enterprises like his will lead the way.

The rise of the pea


Credits to: Mikolaj Idziak

It’s undeniable that the little green legume has a lot of nutrients. It’s almost tasteless but, most importantly, its production is not harmful for the environment.

From a sustainable point of view, peas, do everything that corn, wheat and soy don’t. They require little water and almost no fertiliser to grow as they fix nitrogen back into the soil and make good contenders for crop rotation.

Pea-protein consumption volumes have almost doubled to 275,000 tonnes from 2015, and predictions show the market will grow by another 30 percent next year, rising to 580,000 tonnes in 2025. Unlike insects, pea-based food hit the shelves years ago and since then, the business has skyrocketed. According to Mintel, 757 new pea-related food was introduced into the market in 2018, which is worth more than £26.2 million.

The UK seems to be the leader of this growing market, launching 121 new pea protein food in 2018. One of the main strengths of the legume is the fact it can grow everywhere.

Brave, a UK-based start-up founded by vegan husband and wife Seb and Amber Sokol, grows their peas no more than 100 miles from their central London offices.

“Sustainability also means delivering a zero-mile product,” says Seb Sokol. “Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya, but did you know peas can grow in the UK as well? We decided to work with farmers in the east of England only, to keep our production local and have even less impact on the environment.”

The carbon footprint of shipping groceries is estimated to be 11 percent of the whole food emissions, with airfreight generating 50 times more CO2 than sea shipping. While 100 grams of beef proteins produce 50 kilos of gas emissions, the same quantity of peas only produce 0.4 kilos.

The couple behind Brave strongly believes peas could become the perfect alternative to meat, if only people were eager to give up on it.

“Compared to corn, cashews and potato crisps, peas have a higher amount of proteins and fibres,” Sokol says. “They are categorised as ‘nutrient dense’ which means they contains a lot of nutrients and less calories.”

Peas also contain important vitamins like vitamin B, manganese, potassium and copper which red meat doesn’t have altogether.

“We could just feed of peas and satisfy both our bodies and the environment, but people need to show more willingness for peas and less enthusiasm for new meat products.”

Red seaweed, the algae that has all the red meat attributes


Credits to: Francesco Ungaro

Seaweed has been part of the Asian diet for millenniums, but it hasn’t had much success among Europeans, who still favours garden vegetables.

However, new start-ups have started to explore the benefits of the algae more in depth and discovered its benefits.

Red seaweeds, for example, have the highest protein levels among all the seaweeds and can easily be camouflaged for red meat. But they contain in fact even more proteins.

Red seaweed has already a global supply chain of over 18 million tons per year and compared to its direct competitor, soybeans, it has five times the amount of proteins.

However, although red seaweed is found in big quantities in all coasts around the British Isles, there are lot of sophisticated process techniques involved which don’t make red seaweed widely available in the market at an affordable price.

Although its high sustainability and meat-alike colour makes it a perfect candidate as alternative protein to red meat, process methods need to be further developed.

A firm conclusion

It has been proved alternative proteins could reduce livestock emissions mainly because they are largely available without requiring the use of a vast proportion of land. Some alternative proteins can also grow locally without involving transportation and byproduct is minimum. Others like insects are even nature’s perfect upcycling machines. Although the processing of these proteins mostly happens in labs and requires advanced technologies which might not satisfy GMO sceptics, some alternative proteins such as peas have little processing involved.

It will be impossible to sustainably satisfy the future demand for meat. For a foreseeable future, meat and alternative-protein industries need to coexist and complement one other from now onwards. It’s the only way for the future generations to have safe, sustainable, affordable and healthy proteins available on their tables.


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