Improving sustainability through animal welfare advocacy

As a BVA member, I’ve been proud to see BVA and our profession advancing our sustainability activities in recent years, driving progress on both animal welfare and environmental problems. In 2019, 89% of vets said that they would like to play a more active role in the UK sustainability agenda and since then, BVA has led from the front. I enjoy bumping into examples of activities this leadership may have sparked, knowing that, for example, over 100 veterinary organisations have now joined the Investors in the Environment scheme.

Securing a Good Life for Animals

‘Sustainability’ is often interpreted as ‘environmental sustainability’, but of course, the environment is one of three traditional pillars of sustainability: Environment, Economic and Social. A difficulty with this traditional model is that it does not obviously capture the wellbeing of the billions of sentient animals with whom we share the planet. An alternative conception, advocated by the UK Government’s advisory Farm Animal Welfare Committee (now Animal Welfare Committee) and others, is the ‘three E’s’ approach: Environment, Economic and Ethics. This recognises that if an activity does not align with societal ethical values, such as ensuring the humane treatment of sentient animals, it will lose the support of citizens and become unsustainable.

Ensuring that animal welfare is fully recognised and embedded as a goal within the sustainability agenda is an urgent objective for the veterinary professions, with the three E’s approach championed in BVA’s policy position on UK Sustainable Animal Agriculture and the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE)’s Animal Welfare Strategy. One of the Veterinary Sustainability Goals is securing A Good Life for Animals.

Environmental sustainability

There are sound reasons why veterinary leadership in environmental sustainability is happening and necessary. Veterinary professionals have a natural affinity with animals and, by extension for most, the outdoors and our shared environment. Against this general inclination, we also have responsibility; clinical veterinary practice, like human medicine, has an environmental footprint, which we have a duty to minimize, stemming from our use of anaesthetic gases through to our disposal of single-use materials.

Our requirements to drive ethical and environmental sustainability are linked. A key element of our environmental responsibility derives from our primary professional aim to help make the world a better place for animals. Environmentally destructive processes impact on the welfare of individual animals. For each of the four ‘horsemen of the ecological apocalypse’ – habitat destruction, over-exploitation, pollution (including increasing greenhouse gas emissions resulting in climate change) and the introduction of non-native species – there are potential impacts on the quality of individual animals' lives. Our profession’s mission to protect and enhance animal welfare, including for those animals beyond the bounds of our direct care, compels us to promote environmental stewardship.

Balancing sustainability objectives

In many cases, our professional duties to environmental protection and animal welfare advocacy are synergistic. But what about instances where they’re not? Reducing the growth rates of chickens selectively bred for meat, for example, improves their health and welfare, but can increase their carbon footprint. In these cases, advocating the best interests of animals must be the primary aim of our animal welfare-focused profession.

The same is true at the practice level. The welcome rise in practice ‘green champions’, charged with leading on environmental actions, should not be displacing, for example, ‘pet wellbeing champions’, charged with leading on a practice’s animal welfare improvements. The same hypothetical point applies to all professions: it would be inappropriate for environmentally proactive teachers, for example, to prioritise green initiatives over their pupils’ educational attainment, were these to be in conflict.

Advocating both goals

The trust placed in veterinary professionals gives us opportunity and responsibility to inform the public about both animal welfare and environmental challenges, as part of sustainability in its truest sense, and about positive steps we can all take. The actions we take as individuals can, in turn, stimulate broader transformational change across society, so it is important we lead by example.

The Greener Veterinary Practice Checklist is an excellent free resource giving examples of these actions, as is the BVA Sustainability and the Veterinary Profession Action Plan, which includes the importance of veterinary professionals promoting ‘less and better’ meat and dairy consumption. In the case of chicken meat, for those who eat it, this results in our consuming reduced quantities from slower-growing breeds: a win-win for animal welfare and the environment.

Another win-win example, in companion animal practice, is advocating and supporting improved breeding practices, since reducing health and welfare issues and therefore the need for treatment will reduce an animal’s environmental footprint. BVA’s #BreedToBreathe toolbox, including 10-point practice plan, is a brilliant resource for helping to improve the health and welfare of brachycephalic (flat-faced) dogs, in particular.

More information

Further ways in which we can all reduce our animal welfare footprint, and how vets and vet nurses are driving and supporting this, are championed in Sean’s book Through A Vet’s Eyes: How We Can All Choose a Better Life for Animals.

For more advice on advocating animal welfare as a key sustainability objective, check out the BVA Animal Welfare Strategy Vets Speaking Up for Animal Welfare and the #GreenTeamVet campaign.