Retailers and corporations

The metric

The Welfare Footprint Framework (WFF) measures welfare as time spent in experiences of defined intensity. That gives one unit for comparing systems, categories and suppliers, alongside cost and emissions.

Intensity and duration are estimated by synthesizing behavioural, neurophysiological, pharmacological and evolutionary evidence against defined criteria, and are expressed as probabilities across four intensity categories rather than a single value. Prevalence comes from epidemiological evidence; where data are thin, it is given as an uncertainty interval. Each parameter is treated as a hypothesis with a stated uncertainty, and is updated as evidence accumulates. The main limitations, mostly sparse data on timing and prevalence, are set out in the FAQ. The framework does not prescribe whether to improve current systems or move away from them. It makes the welfare consequences of each option comparable. The method is the same for every estimate. What varies is the scope (species, system, life stages and region), and each estimate states its boundaries.

Start here: What is a welfare footprint? · The framework · Pain intensities

1. Commitments and sourcing requirements

A cage-free share or a breed standard records a change of system, not the welfare it delivers. Expressed as pain averted, commitments can be compared across categories and weighed against cost.

Multiplying a per-animal estimate, such as the pain averted for each hen moved from a conventional cage to an aviary (cage-free transition), by the animals in your supply turns a commitment into a target you can track. Each result applies to the practice studied. For broilers, the full benefit also depends on parent lines being slower-growing (broilers), and a Nature Food comment sets out the cost of slower-growing breeds (Schuck-Paim, Alonso, Verkuijl, Hegwood & Hartcher, 2025).

2. Prioritise across the portfolio

The estimates show where pain concentrates in a portfolio, so effort goes where the gain is largest, not where an issue is most visible.

Published estimates differ in scope, so check what each covers before comparing them, then multiply by the animals behind your purchases and add cost.

3. Benchmark and report

A common unit gives benchmarking a measure rather than a checklist, reported alongside environmental and economic indicators.

A progress report is clearest when it states what changed, for how many animals, and the estimated pain averted per animal, with its range, scope and source, rather than a general reference to a higher-welfare standard.

4. Ratings and consumer information

A rating built on proxies, such as housing system, can let estimates replace them as each is completed. The Food Welfare Explorer prototype tests how welfare information reads to consumers; its AI-assisted outputs are exploratory, not Welfare Footprint estimates.

For each score, a platform can note the proxy used and the estimate that would replace it. Where an estimate exists, the score reflects hours of pain averted; the rest stay marked as proxies.

Ways to work with WFI

• Integrate estimates as they are published, or adopt early in sourcing, reporting or consumer information.
• Support the estimates that matter to you (Funding and philanthropy). Support brings a public estimate sooner; it does not create a private metric or change the findings.
• Learn through Workshops and Office Hours.
• Draft a first pass with the AI-Assisted Tools. Outputs need expert review and are not WFI estimates.

Using the estimates responsibly

• Match the scope (species, system, region, harms) to your products, and give the full range.
• State the animal numbers you scale by, and their source.
• Cite the version and date. Estimates are free to use under CC BY 4.0.
• Describe your analysis as informed by Welfare Footprint estimates, not endorsed or certified by WFI.

Tell us how you have used an estimate, or which one would change your next decision.

Available now, and coming

Now: the framework, the AI-Assisted Tools, and estimates for specific reforms: cage-free housing, slower-growing broilers and poultry slaughter. The Estimates Dossier, still being built, will list everything that exists.

Coming: product-level footprints. The first, The Welfare Footprint of the Egg, is forthcoming from CRC Press and compares three egg production systems per hen and per egg. Until then, the estimates compare reforms, not products.

Your question

Or email contact@welfarefootprint.org.