Animal products are a massive contributor to the climate problem. Agriculture makes up more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, and animal agriculture is responsible for over half of these emissions. Livestock emits greenhouse gases directly, but also from the crops for animal feed and from deforestation for ranching and feedstock. Animal-based protein production is way worse for climate change than plant-based proteins, such as tofu, groundnuts, and pulses. While a common sustainability recommendation is to buy local foods and eliminate packaging, what we eat is a far more important decision than where it comes from.

Animal agriculture also has a massive impact on the world’s environment due to its enormous land use. Agriculture takes up more than half of the world’s habitable land. Large parts of the world that were once covered by forests and wildlands are now used for agriculture, largely because producing animal products requires way more land than growing plants. This loss of natural habitat has been the main driver for reducing the world’s biodiversity. Wildlife can rebound if we reduce agricultural land use and allow natural lands to restore.

An additional concern is that global meat production is on the rise. As the world gets richer, people shift towards more diverse diets with more meat and dairy. In many ways, this is great news, as more people are lifted out of poverty and can afford more protein-rich food. At the same time, this means that global emissions from agriculture are to keep growing. Emissions from the food system alone makes it unlikely that we keep global warming below 2 °C – let alone 1.5 °C or other sectors. A global shift to a plant-based diet is one of the key interventions we need to take to tackle climate change. 

Compared to other climate solutions, the transition to sustainable proteins is much more neglected. Sustainable proteins, like plant-based and cultivated meat, receive only one percent of the funding that electric vehicles and batteries receive, globally. On top of this, many regions, like the EU and the US, heavily subsidise animal agriculture but tax gasoline, leading to an unfair playing field for plant-based products. 

In conclusion, we need to drastically scale up global efforts to accelerate the transition towards sustainable proteins, like plant-based and cultivated meat. Solar and wind energy have grown exponentially in recent years, and we need to make sure that sustainable proteins do so, too. This article describes what types of sustainable proteins exist, and what you can do to accelerate the protein transition.

Types of sustainable protein

You might already be familiar with tofu or falafel, which are delicious and nutritious sources of sustainable proteins. More recent products include plant-based meat, cultivated meat, and products based on precision fermentation.

Plants and traditional alternatives

Traditional foods such as tofu, tempeh, falafel, seitan, or 20th century products like ‘nut meat’ or quorn are a rich source of proteins, without imitating the taste and texture of meat. In some cultures, they are marketed specifically for vegetarians as substitutes for meat. Oat and soy milk have seen a sharp increase in sales and can be seen as an alternative to cow milk, without mimicking the taste.

Nonetheless, many traditional plant-based products do not have the properties needed to target meat-eaters from replacing meat with plant-based counterparts, rather than vegetarians. Making plant-based foods look and taste like conventional meat is a key step to reduce meat consumption.

Plant-based meat

A variety of start-ups and established companies are developing plant-based meats that emulate the taste, smell, and cooking qualities of conventional meat. These products combine proteins, fats, and minerals from sources like legumes, wheat, and vegetables with spices and seasonings to create sustainable food that appeals to omnivores and flexitarians. Proteins are isolated from plant sources such as soybeans, peas, or wheat and texturised to give them a meaty mouthfeel.

Taste is by far the most important factor that consumers cite for seeking and purchasing plant-based meat, along with texture, aroma, and appearance. Especially in the US and Canada, the vast majority (73%) of consumers state that plant-based products should taste as good as meat. (Although this importance is questioned by some.)

Cultivated meat

Cultivated meat, also known as cell-based or cultured meat, is the same product as conventional meat, but grown directly from cells. Starting with a tiny, almond-sized sample of cells, the meat can grow when fed with proteins, carbohydrates, and fat. At scale, this process looks a lot like a beer brewery, with meat grown in large steel tanks.

Since cultivated meat is real meat, it can offer the same taste, mouthfeel, and nutrition as conventional meat, while having a much smaller environmental footprint.

Precision fermentation products

Fermentation is a versatile and old technique that uses microorganisms to produce the taste and texture of foods like sauerkraut, miso, kimchi, and sourdough. More recently, we can use fermentation with much more precision to create the exact tastes, textures, and properties we like. For example, precision fermentation is used to produce rennet (for cheese) and vitamin B12.

We can use precision fermentation to produce animal fats without the need for animals. This adds meaty flavours to plant-based and cultivated meat products.

Fermentation gets less attention than some plant-based and cultivated meat innovation, but the simplicity of the production, the low costs, and the flexibility make it a highly scalable method that is still at its infancy. One fermentation start-up aims to produce one cow’s worth of protein every two minutes.

How to contribute to accelerate the protein transition?

Compared to the energy transition, the protein transition is much more neglected. This suggests that one extra person contributing to the protein transition can have a profound impact on the trajectory of meat consumption globally.

Donating to effective charities

One simple action is to join the community of people donating part of their income to the most cost-effective charities. Independent charity research by Giving Green has identified The Good Food Institute (GFI) as one of the world’s most cost-effective climate charities, with co-benefits for protecting biodiversity, reducing animal suffering, and preventing anti-microbial resistance. 

GFI is a global network of non-profit organisations in the United States, Europe, Japan, Asia-Pacific, India, Brazil, and Israel. GFI cultivates a strong scientific ecosystem to get plant-based and cultivated meat to compete on taste and price, influences supportive policies and government funding, and ensures that the food sector adopts sustainable products.

You can also choose to donate using FarmKind. FarmKind is a non-profit organisation that helps people donate to effective organisations working to end factory farming. Their climate fund supports charities that have been independently evaluated to effectively halt climate change by stopping factory farming. Besides GFI, FarmKind also supports the Danish Vegetarian Association.

If you want to donate to other cost-effective climate organisations or philanthropic funds, we recommend checking out our page with all charity recommendations.

Building an effective career

The sustainable protein sector is rapidly growing with a diverse range of roles and skills in high demand. You can contribute professionally to the protein transition, even if you do not have a background in food science.

Key skills for advancing the protein transition are policy advocacy, research and development, and business and entrepreneurship, although other skills are often relevant, too.

As a policy professional, you might work in a government to draft and improve legislation or lobby governments to support sustainable proteins on behalf of an NGO or a company. One of the priorities of policy work in the protein transition is to secure public funds for sustainable protein science to get plant-based and cultivated meat to compete on taste and price. Policy advocates also focus on clear and efficient regulations for a path to market for cultivated meat, and for fair labeling of plant-based products like soy milk. In some regions, like Europe, it is necessary to reduce the high taxation on plant-based products compared to their conventional counterparts.

As a scientist or engineer in research and development, your contributions are crucial for getting the taste, price, and consumer convenience of sustainable proteins right. While there are already plant-based products available in many supermarkets, they can still be vastly improved; or you can contribute to the development of cultivated meat or precision fermentation. Key technical bottlenecks you can work on are new protein extraction equipment, better bioreactors for fermentation and cultivated meat, and foundational cultivated meat research. You can find more resources for a technical career in sustainable proteins at High Impact Engineers.

In business and entrepreneurship, you can work at or start an sustainable protein company, or work at larger food companies to replace meat sales with plant-based products. You help innovative companies get funding, partnerships, and sales.

Below, we highlight some resources that might help you find a career in the protein transition or get inspired.

Job boards and talent databases

• AltProtein.Jobs by Tälist (global)

• Alt Protein Careers (U.S., Canada, Europe)

• GFI jobs board

• Jobs board by Cellular Agriculture Australia

• Add yourself to the GFI talent database for recruiters

Career guides

• How engineers can work on alternative protein by High Impact Engineers

• Alternative Proteins Career Guide by Effective Altruism Netherlands

• Pathways into cellular agriculture by Cellular Agriculture Canada

Activism and personal actions

While we believe systemic change and innovation are needed most for the protein transition, many people in the effective environmentalism movement reduce their consumption of animal products or eat a fully plant-based diet. Your personal actions might keep you motivated to contribute to systemic change; and contributing to systemic change keeps you motivated to continue your personal actions. Talking to other people about why you eat less or no meat might inspire them to take similar actions.

As an activist, you can inspire nearby restaurants to increase the amount of plant-based dishes that they serve or improve how they are presented on the menu. For example, dishes presented in a separate ‘Vegan’ section get purchased way less often than plant-based dishes in the main menu. Depending on the political structure of your country, you can also become a member of a political party and advocate for support for the protein transition.

More resources

Overview of players

• The Protein Directory has a filterable list of sustainable protein companies

• The KET Maps on newprotein.org has a visual representation of the sustainable protein landscape, and specific maps for milk, cheese, dairy, fungi, and algae.

• Alternative Protein Ecosystem map by GFI

Courses

• The Protein Transition, open-access online course by GFI.

Community and events

• GFIdeas seminars, community Slack, and networking events

• Upcoming events on the GFI website

• Proveg New Food Conference

Other

• Alt Protein Student Resource Guide by GFI

Research

• Thesis resources by Effective Thesis, and a list of research questions

• Veganthesis.org

This article was written by Soemano Zeijlmans from Effective Environmentalism and informed by the articles by Hugh Irving for High Impact Engineers, Linne van der Meulen for Effective Altruism Netherlands, and Food Frontier. If you have suggestions for improvement, please let us know.