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Here’s why animal welfare is integral to addressing the climate crisis

August 11, 2021
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Photo by Svetlana Barmina on Unsplash
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Written by Joe Loria, Meat Reduction Campaign Manager.

The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a new 3,949-page report that devastatingly concluded we're out of time to prevent the impacts of climate change because it's here now.

The report synthesizes the past eight years of advances in climate science, citing more than 14,000 leading studies.

This stark warning is being hailed as a code red for humanity, with scientists urging world leaders to take swift action to mitigate the impacts of our warming planet. From raging wildfires and record flooding to once-in-a-lifetime weather events happening nearly annually, we're seeing the impacts of climate change today.

Among other things, the report found:

· The global surface temperature was 1.09C higher between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900.

· The past five years have been the hottest on record since 1850.

· The recent rate of sea-level rise has nearly tripled compared with 1901-1971.

So, where does animal welfare come into play here? Our ever-increasing appetite for meat, dairy, and eggs is driving both the climate crisis and the global expansion of low-welfare factory farming.

Overconsumption in the United States has significantly driven the demand for cheap meat, dairy, and eggs, and in turn, is fueling the climate crisis.

Globally, meat production is five times higher than it was 50 years ago. Food production has fundamentally changed to prioritize quantity over quality at the expense of our environment, the climate, animal welfare, and health. Hundreds of billions of animals are raised each year in barren, overcrowded, and cruel conditions to mass-produce meat.

Cows on open land Photo by Stijn te Strake on Unsplash

In addition to causing the suffering of billions of living, feeling beings, this industrialized system depletes our planet's resources via the billions of pounds of feed needed to sustain it and the billions of pounds of manure it generates.

The report emphasizes the damaging impacts of methane, a greenhouse gas that's 25-100 times more destructive than CO2 in a 20-year time frame. While there are many sources of methane, the single largest contributor in the United States and globally is livestock production.

The billions of farmed animals produce an unmanageable volume of waste stored in pits prone to leaks or sprayed onto fields at outrageous rates, leading to contamination of vital water resources.

This manure releases methane into the atmosphere as it breaks down. Unfortunately, attempts to create methane-capture technologies have served only to incentivize further intensification and do not mitigate other air pollutants, exacerbating rather than solving the problem.

The ever-increasing production of mass quantities of livestock feed crops, primarily corn and soy, is a leading cause of deforestation, habitat loss, and water pollution, contributing overwhelmingly to the global emissions as well as the sixth mass extinction we're currently seeing.

The multinational corporations at the helm of food production are focused solely on maximizing profits, hoping to sweep under the rug their role in animal cruelty and rampant greenhouse gas emissions. But our demand for cheap animal protein fuels the fire, causing mass suffering to farmed animals, destroying the environment, and endangering people's health.

Our planet's future depends on us rethinking how we treat all animals and how we raise our food. The time is now to work together and transform the global food system and end cruel and destructive factory farming.

This latest code red warning issued by the IPCC must serve as a wake-up call for world leaders and each of us to take individual action. We all have a part to play by eating less meat, choosing humane and sustainable proteins, and demanding a better life for farmed animals.

Join the global movement of people who are committed to creating a kinder future by signing up for Meating Halfway, a 21-day journey that'll guide you towards eating less meat

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Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.