A glass of milk for breakfast, spaghetti bolognese for lunch, a boiled egg and a couple of slices of salami for supper – this is a normal daily diet for many people. However, it contributes to global growth in the consumption of animal products. Especially in developing countries, the demand for meat and other animal-based products is massively on the rise.

According to forecasts, the demand for meat will double by 2050.

Not only do animals suffer as a result of this industry. Many people are unaware that increasing meat consumption has an effect on the climate and the environment.

More than 85 billion farmed land animals are slaughtered for meat each year worldwide². The immense production of animal-based products, especially red meat and dairy, emits a lot of greenhouse gases, compared to plant-based foods³. Animal agriculture is the biggest contributor to two of the three major sources of anthropogenic GHG emissions: methane and nitrous oxide⁴.

We can’t continue like this. We must put an end to factory farming.

With our multi-award-winning movie Eating the Future FOUR PAWS exposes the horrors of factory farming and the failures of our food system. But FOUR PAWS also wants to spark hope for a better future – a food system which is healthy for our planet, our animals and us.

According to the FAO, farmed cattle (raised for both beef and milk) are the animal species responsible for the most emissions, representing about 62% of animal agriculture’s emissions⁵. This is only because we humans intensively breed them. Therefore, it is not a solution to shift meat consumption to smaller, non-ruminant animals i.e. chicken instead of beef as it might worsen animal welfare by affecting a substantially larger number of animals in worse keeping conditions.

Globally, according to the EAT-Lancet reference diet meat consumption must be reduced by at least 50% to provide the growing world population healthy, sustainable diet within planetary boundaries.