We can’t do this alone: Why coalition building is essential to addressing the climate ‘cow in the room’

It is still the case that the elephant in the room at so many climate discussions is distinctly cow-shaped. Research suggests that the production and consumption of animal products in the EU accounts for 12-17% of the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions, yet government funding for food systems change represents a fraction of spending on green technologies such as electric cars and renewable energy. 

This makes investment in food, and protein diversification in particular, more highly leveraged for climate impact than funding for any other sector. 

But protein production is more complex and culturally ingrained than what car you drive or where your energy comes from, just as its environmental impacts go far beyond emissions, impacting air and water pollution, land use change and biodiversity loss. Likewise, as a relatively new field, awareness of alternative proteins’ potential among the key groups central to effectively delivering protein diversification such as policymakers, scientists, farmers, and health professionals is still sorely lacking. 

In 2024, powered by the incredible support of our family of donors, we set out to change that. 

To deliver on the potential of alternative proteins as a climate solution, our work this year has focused on raising awareness of the change that is needed among those groups best placed to deliver it, and expanding the evidence base for the leveraged role of alternative proteins as an emerging green technology. 

We demonstrated how alternative proteins can support Europe’s shift to more sustainable farming

Published in May 2024, A New Land Dividend, written by prominent climate think tank Green Alliance and commissioned by GFI Europe, delivered fascinating and novel insights into the land use benefits of alternative proteins. 

Available in 10 languages, the report examines the biggest agricultural countries in Europe – Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the UK – and finds a shift towards plant-based, cultivated and fermentation-made food could enable 21% of farmland across 10 European countries to be used to transition away from intensive farming practices towards approaches that can help restore biodiversity and create more space for nature restoration.

The reports were widely covered in several European countries as well as Europe-focused news channels. The analysis has also formed the basis of key dialogues with dozens of new NGO and policy stakeholders to raise awareness of the potential of plant-based, fermentation-made and cultivated meat to support sustainable farming and land-use goals.   

This research formed the starting point for our new workstream focused on farming and agriculture, through which we have sought to build a dialogue with farmers and other stakeholders in regenerative agriculture to better understand the opportunities and challenges for farmers emerging from protein diversification. As highlighted by our Senior Policy Manager Elena Walden in the fascinating panel discussion at the EIT Food Next Bite conference in Rome, the overarching goals of alternative proteins and regenerative agriculture have a great deal of overlap, but a more open and inclusive conversation is needed to ensure both movements can drive effective change together. 

We built the case for policymakers and investors with analysis of the economic potential of plant-based foods and cultivated meat

With the economy a significant factor for policymakers, data in this area can be an important tool to help remove barriers to policy support. This year, we commissioned new analysis to fill an important evidence gap in understanding the potential knock-on economic benefits of cultivated meat in addition to climate mitigation. The Future of Cultivated Meat in Europe, a report produced by Systemiq in early October 2024 and funded by GFI Europe, launched a first-of-its-kind analysis of the economic benefits a cultivated meat sector could offer to the EU as a whole, as well as specifically to France, Germany, Poland and Spain. 

GFI collaborated with the Systemiq team on the assumptions underlying the analysis throughout, and commissioned the research with the aim of strengthening the positive case for cultivated meat investment in strategically important EU countries. 

The main takeaway from the report was that, with significant investment and support, in addition to driving a reduction in climate emissions of up to 3.5Gt by 2050, cultivated meat could also contribute €20-85 billion per year to the EU economy. While these numbers should not be taken as a solid projection or forecast for the sector, they do illustrate the huge potential of the sector not only to contribute to the fight against climate change but also to produce economic benefits.  

The report has already helped GFI Europe and its allies get into the room with some priority stakeholders including national research funding bodies, increasing the likelihood of more funding being allocated to alternative proteins in the future.

We also developed and published reports on plant-based retail sales data in key European countries for the second consecutive year, finding promising underlying signs for growth despite the rising cost of living. In the midst of a prevailing narrative of plant-based slowdown, these reports explored the latest data in the diverse plant-based landscape across key European countries. The picture was nuanced but promising: sales of plant-based foods across six European countries were worth €5.4 billion in 2023 – up by 5.5% compared with 2022. Over the same period, the volume of plant-based food sold grew by 3.5%. 

Germany, already the largest market for plant-based foods in Europe, continued to show impressive volume growth across almost all product categories, while the overall volume of sales grew in Spain and France, remained stable in Italy and shrank in the UK and the Netherlands. These open-access reports saw considerable media attention across key countries, and provided an open-access snapshot of the latest trends to build company and investor confidence and support further advancement across the sector.

We gave scientists and research funders a clearer view of  the scientific ecosystem, and welcomed major government investments 

Until this year, the full breadth and depth of alternative protein research activity in Europe, and its regional and temporal trends, had never been systematically mapped. Knowledge of what research is being funded, where, and at what scale, and the outputs of this funding in terms of scientific publications is extremely valuable for understanding Europe’s current R&D strengths and weaknesses and charting a course accordingly. In October, we published our twin reports exploring these questions in detail. 

The reports showed promising growth, finding that European scientists published an incredible 472 papers relevant to plant-based foods, cultivated meat and fermentation in 2023 – more than a quarter of all studies ever published in the field – compared to just 19 in 2010. But they also found that, while research funding is showing promising growth, figures are still far short of the Global Innovation Needs Assessment recommendations of what is needed to achieve alternative proteins’ potential. 

It is clear that this field is still in its infancy, with alternative protein researchers collaborating far less than those in other disciplines. This highlights an urgent need to build a more coherent network with international programmes that bring scientists together.

To help foster this much-needed development of the scientific ecosystem, this year we welcomed two new members to our SciTech team, Eileen and Ismäel, to build networks and foster research collaboration between universities and research institutions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordics – two hotspots for alternative protein innovation. 

We are also seeing growing interest in the field among public funding bodies. 

The German government committed to developing a comprehensive protein strategy focusing on plant proteins for human consumption, founded a competence centre for proteins of the future and started new funding programs for food innovation and supporting farmers to transition from animal farming to growing crops for alternative proteins.

The UK was also a noteworthy example of national leadership in research funding, with four major new research centres announced in 2023 and 2024, including the £15 million National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC) launched to accelerate the commercialisation of plant-based, cultivated and fermentation-made foods, the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein and Microbial Food Hub based at Imperial College London, and the Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub (CARMA) specialising in cultivated and fermentation-made meat based at the University of Bath. Learn more about these new research hubs in our blog. 

In addition to this expanding research ecosystem, the UK government also this year announced that it will create Europe’s first cultivated meat regulatory sandbox to improve the Food Standards Agency’s scientific knowledge about this food to help ensure timely regulatory review at the same time as upholding world-class food safety standards. 

At the EU level, biotechnology is rising up the agenda as a way of boosting resilience in the face of an increasingly turbulent global climate. Food is a crucial part of this – one on which Europe is well placed to lead. With the new European Commission just taking office, we’ll be encouraging EU policymakers to consider how alternative proteins could be a vital missing piece of the policy jigsaw that could tackle many of the EU’s challenges. 

We highlighted the relevance of alternative proteins for public health 

There is also a growing awareness among healthcare professionals of the twin challenges of health and sustainability in diets, and increasing interest in the potential of plant-based foods as a solution to this. 

Following the publication of our report on plant-based meat and health in Europe at the end of 2023, this year we highlighted the significant opportunities offered by alternative proteins in the field of public health and nutrition, while also countering emerging misinformation relating to plant-based meat and creating resources in German, Spanish and Italian. 

This work also included our submission to the UK House of Lords Commission on Food, Diet and Obesity. Our submission was ultimately cited in the final report, and highlighted the potential of plant-based meat as a tool to combat diet-related ill health stemming from the overconsumption of red and processed meat, and the important nutritional role alternative proteins can play in the diets of those who want to or need to reduce their consumption of conventional animal products. 

Help us drive meaningful climate action in 2025

Our work is built around the central tenet that to effectively drive change, we need to find solutions that don’t force us to choose between the foods we love and our climate, and ways of keeping our traditions while also building a food system that is healthier for us and the planet. This impact-centric approach has led to us being selected among Giving Green’s top climate charities for a third year in a row. 

Delivering the meat people want in a more sustainable way – without compromising on taste and affordability – is a tall order, but Europe’s latent strengths in both food and scientific innovation make it well-equipped to chart this course. 

With the seeds of innovation already in the ground, we now need them to grow to meet mainstream protein demand while realising key social benefits. To do that, we need a greater awareness of the potential of alternative proteins in conversations outside of the food innovation bubble, and a broad coalition of allies to effectively drive change. Food production is a critical but all too often overlooked part of the fight against climate change, and within that, alternative proteins are one of the most leveraged ways to enable the sweeping shifts needed on the urgent timeframes we face. 

Our passionate and driven team work each day to unlock the potential of plant-based foods, cultivated meat and fermentation, but that work is only possible thanks to our fantastic family of donors who share our commitment to building a better world for people, planet and animals. 

Join us, and help us work together to finally address the climate ‘cow in the room’ in 2025.