The measurement of animal welfare is notoriously complex, particularly given the challenge of assessing subjective experiences in nonverbal subjects. Yet, to effectively improve animals’ lives, we need clear ways to understand and compare the impact of different conditions, practices, and interventions on welfare. The Welfare Footprint Framework (WFF) addresses this need by providing a scientifically robust and empirically-grounded means to map and quantify the animal welfare impact of different living conditions and practices involved in the development, production and use of products and services in all those contexts where animals are involved.
At its core, the WFF focuses on measuring the two most relevant dimensions of affective experiences: intensity and duration. For negative affective experiences (operationally termed ‘pain’), the framework estimates the cumulative time individuals spend in four intensity categories: Annoying (noticeable but not interfering with activities), Hurtful (disrupting optimal functioning), Disabling (preventing most normal functions), and Excruciating (overwhelming all other functions). Similarly, positive experiences (‘pleasure’) are categorized into four intensity categories reflecting increasing levels of positive engagement. Estimates of intensity and duration rely on a synthesis of existing research evidence, including behavioral, neurophysiological, anatomical, and pharmacological indicators.
The WFF is designed to serve multiple audiences:
Researchers: can quantify and compare animal welfare across species, production systems, living conditions, practices and contexts.
Students: can learn a welfare assessment framework with direct applications in practice and policy.
Veterinarians and animal care-takers: can describe, estimate, and compare pain from diseases, injuries and physiological imbalances, leading to more effective pain management and treatment.
Industries: can identify, compare and mitigate the welfare impact of different practices in the production chain and estimate the cost-effectiveness of different animal welfare interventions
Policymakers: provides an objective basis for setting welfare standards and evaluating policy impacts, and enables evidence-based decision making when balancing animal welfare with other priorities.
Certification bodies: Aids in establishing objective thresholds for acceptable welfare standards
Advocates: allows quantitative comparison of welfare impacts of interventions and highlights high-impact opportunities to reduce animal suffering
Consumers: Clarifies confusing welfare claims and certifications and empowers more informed purchasing decisions aligned with ethical values
The Welfare Footprint Framework provides a structured approach to evaluating animal welfare. It is divided into distinct analytical blocks, illustrated in this Figure.
The following are the key components of the WFF:
I. Zootechnical Description: describes the physical, social, genetic, environmental and management conditions (referred to as ‘Circumstances’) that animal are typically exposed to. The description is hierarchical, in that Circumstances are described for each phase of life of each type of animal (referred to as ‘life fate’) for the system and species of interest.
II. Veterinary Inventory: identifies the Biological Consequences of the Circumstances to which animals are exposed. These consequences can be either physical (e.g., injuries, diseases, physiological imbalances) or psychological (e.g., perceptions of sensorial and social stimuli).
III. Affective Quantification: describes the affective experiences stemming from each of the Biological Consequences identified and quantifies the magnitude of their impact on welfare. This is done by:
(i) Documenting and organizing existing knowledge (e.g., behavioral, pharmacological, neurophysiological) on the temporal evolution of intensity of each affective experience, using the notation systems Pain-Track and Pleasure-Track;
(ii) Estimating the cumulative time in negative states (‘pain’) or positive states (‘pleasure’) of different intensities due to each affective experience, represented by the metrics Cumulative Pain and Cumulative Pleasure, respectively
(iii) If an affective experience is endured more than once by an individual, Cumulative Pain or Pleasure can be extended to multiple occurrences, taking into account potential changes in the intensity or duration of the experience over time (e.g., habituation, sensitization).
IV. Epidemiological Investigation:
To estimate welfare impacts at the population level, it is necessary to understand the proportion of animals, in each life fate and life phase of the target population, that will undergo each affective experience (i.e., the prevalence of each affective experience). By multiplying Cumulative Pain or Cumulative Pleasure due to an experience by its prevalence, Cumulative Pain or Pleasure are determined for the average member of a population of interest. The typical number of occurrences of each experience (in each life fate and life phase) are also investigated in this module.
V. Econometric Calculation (Population): Cumulative Pain and Cumulative Pleasure derived from all Biological Consequences are calculated per unit of product.
Interspecific Weighting
Accounts for potential differences in affective capacity across species, as needed to compare welfare footprints or cumulative affect between species.
Welfare Footprints
Welfare Footprints can represent Cumulative Pain and Cumulative Pleasure associated with a single affective experience, a practice, living condition, policy, product or system.
The video on the left summarizes the approach, and the video on the right is a presentation, by our Research Director, explaining the method in more detail. The video on the bottom is a presentation of the general analytical framework to calculate Welfare Footprints.
