Billions of animals are affected daily by human decisions. Quantifying the animal welfare impacts of these decisions—including policy formulation, corporate strategy, research prioritization, and philanthropic funding—is essential for effectively improving their lives. The Welfare Footprint Institute addresses this need through the Welfare Footprint Framework (WFF), an analytical approach developed to provide the quantitative foundation needed to integrate animal welfare considerations into decision-making. At its core is a meaningful, relatable, and comparable method that quantifies the animals’ cumulative lifetime experiences – cumulative time spent in different affective states (Cumulative Pain and Cumulative Pleasure). These metrics enable evidence-based understanding of the quality of life of animals, facilitating prioritization to maximize welfare outcomes from existing expenditures.
The cost-effectiveness of WFI’s activities arises primarily from leveraging large existing investments in animal-impacting activities, enabling more effective resource allocation , increasing the likelihood of reforms through evidence and awareness about animal welfare impacts through relatable metrics. The impact is indirect but potentially vast:
Acknowledging the inherent limitations in estimating indirect impact, particularly as related to systemic change, we can broadly estimate WFI’s potential cost-effectiveness by considering the following scenarios.
WFI is currently investigating interventions to improve the welfare of fish at slaughter. This work is likely to review tractable and cheap interventions that will enable averting an average of 30- 60 minutes of intense pain per fish during pre-slaughter operations like crowding, transport and holding procedures (counterfactual: despite the growing focus on fish welfare at slaughter, efforts have primarily concentrated on stunning technologies, overlooking pre-slaughter operations that can last for hours or even days – in this counterfactual, pre-slaughter operations remain largely unaddressed). If the suggested interventions had a likelihood of being implemented for, say, 30% of individuals from two species (e.g., salmon and trout, representing approximately 1 billion animals slaughtered every year), this would translate into a potential reduction of 150 to 350 million hours of intense pain per year. The research investigating these interventions is estimated at $50,000, spent mostly on research salaries. This translates into the possibility of averting about 5,000 hours of intense pain per year for every dollar spent with this WFI research. This estimate is conservative as it focuses only on the direct impact of campaigns for two species over a year only, and does not consider its generalizability to other fish species. While the WFI does not implement these changes directly, it provides the quantitative framework and evidence that makes these large-scale, evidence-based improvements possible.
Consider the population of over 200 billion farmed vertebrates slaughtered every year, and the potential to improve the lives of, say, 5% of this population (~10 billion animals, mostly broilers and fish) globally (this estimate is based on one of the major global campaigns, the cage-free transition, reaching about 5 to 20% of the global population; here we assume campaigns reaching broilers and fish will be relatively less successful). Consider that each broiler chicken experiences at least 50 hours of intense pain (as previously estimated), and that farmed fish live an average of 20 months in captivity. If only 1% of farmed fish lifespan was in intense pain (a conservative assumption), this would amount to about 100 hours in intense pain per fish (20 months x 30 days x 16 hours/day * 0.01). If by helping design more effective interventions, standards and practices to reduce time suffering, the WFI made welfare interventions just 1% more effective than they would have been otherwise (counterfactual), either by helping reduce more time in pain or increasing the likelihood of implementation, it could help avert an ‘additional’ 8 billion hours in intense pain per year. This represents 20,000 hours (~1,250 days) in intense pain averted per dollar every year at a budget of 400K/yr (historical), or 0.00001 dollars per hour of intense pain averted. Although the specific figures are extremely speculative given the multiple assumptions made, they illustrate the leverage possible through this work.
By developing and promoting relatable quantitative metrics, we aim to significantly multiply the positive impact of existing resources dedicated to animals. We believe this represents a highly cost-effective pathway to large-scale, long-term improvements. Our vision is a future where the welfare footprint of animal use is routinely measured, understood, compared, and minimized – ensuring decisions involving welfare impacts are well informed and resources are allocated as effectively as possible
