This is the first time a UN report has looked at the potential of novel alternatives to meat and dairy to help reduce the environmental impacts of animal agriculture. The report is also very comprehensive. It doesn’t just look at environmental impacts, but also considers the potential health, socio-economic and animal welfare implications of shifting away from conventional meat and dairy, and towards alternative proteins.

Our appetite for meat and dairy incurs a major cost on planetary health. Animal agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, responsible for 14.5–20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. And, concerningly, global consumption of meat is projected to rise significantly by 2050. The need to bend this curve is one of the key factors driving interest and investment in novel alternatives.

It looks at three types of products that closely mimic or share entirely the taste, smell, and texture of conventional animal products. They are: novel plant-based meat, often made with soy or pea protein; cultivated meat, which is real meat made from animal cells that are fed a growth serum in bioreactors; and fermentation-derived products that use microorganisms to create new alternative proteins.

Overall, the novel meat and dairy alternatives considered show significant promise to reduce environmental impacts, compared to conventional animal products. The findings are particularly notable for land use savings and GHG emissions savings. For instance, lifecycle assessments suggest that the land use footprint or novel alternatives could be around 90% smaller than for conventional beef. And in optimistic scenarios where environmental potential is maximized, the GHG footprint of cultivated meat could be up to 40 times smaller than conventional beef and about a quarter of chicken and pork.

An important caveat here is that many novel alternatives, including cultivated meat, require a lot of energy to produce. Therefore, maximizing their environmental potential requires using low-carbon energy sources, as opposed to fossil fuel energy. The food and energy transitions need to go hand-in-hand.

It’s also important to emphasize that some of these technologies, such as cultivated meat, are still in very preliminary phases, and have not yet been rolled out at scale. So at the moment, their benefits are theoretical, rather than realized. Still, these findings offer a strong basis for continued exploration of this area by researchers and policymakers.

Our report looks at several key dimensions of public health and found that novel alternatives can offer significant benefits in various critical areas. Significantly, shifting to novel alternatives can reduce the risks of infectious disease emergence and anti-microbial resistance that are associated with large-scale animal farming. This is a considerable win from a public health perspective.

When it comes to nutritional health, the picture is more complex. We know that diets that emphasize minimally processed, plant-based foods are generally associated with reduced risks of premature death and non-communicable diseases.

However, some novel plant-based products are highly processed, and we are still learning what the impacts of regular consumption of these products might be. That said, there is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts of novel alternatives. At the same time, there is strong evidence that high intakes of conventional red and processed meats are associated with increased risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer.

Given these complexities, an important takeaway from the report is that more targeted research is needed to comprehensively assess the nutritional implications of alternative proteins as they develop.

Despite their potential, novel alternatives still face significant barriers to scale-up, including challenges related to bringing down their cost and further improving their taste.

If they choose to, governments can support novel alternatives to become commercially viable including funding for research – in particular open-source research – and commercialization. A range of high- and middle-income countries are already taking steps in this direction.

We do need to do more work to understand the socio-economic and equity impacts of novel alternatives. Questions around implications for inequalities between different regions, food security and consolidation of power with larger food companies have been raised, but remain understudied.

The report emphasizes that policymakers can help maximize societally just outcomes by investigating these outcomes, and taking steps to support food security and livelihoods as we transition to a more sustainable food system.