Sustainability: implications for animal production, companion animals and veterinary practice

Purpose

To inform about key concepts and current concerns regarding ecosystem sustainability; to highlight those aspects of most relevance to the veterinary profession; and to provide a basis for any advocacy the profession may undertake on this issue.  Given this is a rapidly changing area of science and debate, this policy will be reviewed on a regular basis.

Policy

1. The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) recognises the importance of ecosystem sustainability and planetary health to ensure global stability, intergenerational equity and prosperity. The AVA encourages its members, stakeholders, governments and the community to advance these important concepts.
2. Veterinary involvement and collaboration with other relevant stakeholders is essential in promoting sustainability within One Health and One Welfare frameworks.

Background

Sustainable development

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (UN, 1987)

Since industrialisation, the growth of human capital has been at the expense of natural capital (Dasgupta, 2021).

The natural world on which our food and livelihood depends has been exploited beyond its sustainable limits. This includes available fresh water, fish stocks, soil degradation, exploitation of forests and the accumulation of pollution including carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and eutrophication of fresh and marine water. Overconsumption has been driven by increased human population and consumption per head, often motivated by short-term financial gain.

Sustainability in this document relates primarily to sustainability of those biological processes which need to function sufficiently well to ensure the ecosystems and services they provide to humanity will continue for future generations. Economic sustainability is implicit in sustainability, but the term is frequently used to justify maintaining a business-as-usual approach which might sustain an enterprise or industry in the short term, but is ultimately counterproductive and socially and environmentally unsustainable longer-term.

Regeneration and renewal

Regeneration and renewal are at the core of sustainability. Some governments (e.g. New Zealand), have actively embraced these concepts and are working to address them. These concepts are included in the British Veterinary Association’s sustainability policy (BVA, 2019) and are being recognised by international agencies such as the UN Environment Programme (UN, 2021, p. 119 s.7.1) as well as veterinary leaders within Australia.  Alders et al 2021 note that “a simple but crucial change will be a shift from measuring gross domestic product to measuring net domestic product where social and environmental impacts of production are also considered.”

These pressures have resulted in a call to usher in new national and global frameworks which align with Sustainable Development Goals to address unsustainable ecosystem decline. (Brondizio et al, 2019)

Planetary boundaries and global support for action

It is widely agreed that humanity faces a critical window of time to transform our overuse of natural resources and pollution of the environment, to mitigate the impacts of climate change and loss of biodiversity, and deliver intergenerational equity (Searchinger et al, 2018; Willett et al, 2019).

World leaders stress the urgent need to address sustainability:  

The State of the World series, produced jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), provides an overview of the challenges facing the world to provide sufficient food and a healthy diet to all. The report identified that between 691-783 million people in the world faced hunger in 2022, an increase of around 122 million from 2019. (FAO et al, 2021)

Key international groups including the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), FAO and the Stockholm Resilience Centre have recognised that meeting sustainable food goals can only be achieved by working within the biological and geophysical planetary boundaries.

The Stockholm Resilience Centre has brought together the work of other peak groups to establish a model identifying nine planetary boundaries which together provide a summary dashboard to monitor safe operating limits; these provide a guide to policy makers to address issues and monitor progress. It shows how progress on one front can have unintended consequences on another: such as use of fertilizer to increase terrestrial food production which damages fish stocks and biodiversity through eutrophication and algal blooms.

The IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, paints a grim picture of a rapid decline in ecosystem health associated with increased food production (IPBES, 2019).

The Australian Government State of the Environment Report 2021 demonstrates that our environment is under extreme pressure. The report explores the links between human wellbeing and the environment, and is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2021)

Important concepts in sustainability

One Health and One Welfare

One Health recognizes the interdependence of human, animal, plant and environmental health, while One Welfare recognises the interconnections between animal welfare and human wellbeing.  The concepts emphasise the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to find solutions to a range of issues relevant to ecosystem sustainability.

Three Pillars of Sustainability

The Three Pillars of Sustainability (Purvis, B et al. 2019) is a model linking the Social, Economic and Environmental components of sustainable development. It is a framework which promotes the balancing of economic success with social progress and environmental stewardship, so that enterprises can achieve true sustainable growth. Together with the Planetary Boundaries and One Health models, these concepts help to define the complex overlapping components of sustainability policy.

Food and agriculture

Using the planetary boundaries framework, major collaborative multi-institutional groups have examined how the world can attempt to feed a hungry and growing world population and remain within these boundaries (Searchinger et al, 2019).

Three gaps have been identified:

• The food gap—the difference between the amount of food produced in 2010 and the amount necessary to meet likely demand in 2050.
• The land gap—the difference between global agricultural land area in 2010 and the area required in 2050 even if crop and pasture yields continue to grow at current rates.
• The greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation gap.

Action taken on any one gap has implications for the others.

Veterinary Practice in a Sustainable World

Veterinarians have an essential role to play in the sustainability agenda (Martens and Deblomme, 2019). Companion animal ownership is increasing worldwide including in low income and developing economies, with concerns over its increasing carbon footprint. The ecological paw print (EPP) for a medium dog has been estimated at 0.27 ha and of a cat 0.3 ha over their respective lifetimes (Acuff et al, 2021). Sustainability goals require that the environmental impacts of companion animal ownership are balanced with the positive social benefits they provide (Read, 2021; Acuff et al, 2021).

Veterinary practices also have an environmental impact, for example through use of anaesthetic gases, disposable materials, clinical waste. Around the world, veterinarians, veterinary associations, veterinary schools and veterinary groups are giving focus to sustainable veterinary practice. This includes the operation of veterinary practices to minimise their ecological footprints.

Recommendations

The veterinary profession can contribute and provide value to the debate on the sustainability agenda.

The AVA supports initiatives that address current known sustainability issues and the implementation of science-based actions that also take account of cultural and animal welfare considerations and equity. These include:

1. Addressing the problem of the inequitable distribution of food, and increasing the supply of food to insecure, vulnerable households, especially in low- and middle-income countries, as a necessary part of the solution.
2. Reducing unsustainable growth in demand for food by promoting healthy diets, reducing consumption in high-income countries and increasing availability of nutritious foods to alleviate suboptimal nutrition in low- and middle-income countries.
3. Improving food waste management: the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, 2024) and the IPCC estimate that solid waste accounted for 3% of GHC emissions in 2010 with most due to methane emissions from landfill sites.
4. Increased efficiency of natural resource use is the single most important step toward meeting both food production and environmental goals. This means increasing crop yields at higher than historical (linear) rates without expanding agricultural lands, and increasing efficiency of production of milk, eggs, meat and edible offal per hectare of pasture, per animal – particularly cattle, sheep and goats – without reducing natural nutrient density of foods or impacting animal welfare. This will be assisted by incorporating positive welfare into Codes of Practice and ensuring that the ten WOAH general principles for the welfare of animals in production are adhered to worldwide.
5. Adapting agricultural practices to minimise eutrophication and environmental impacts, of e.g. fertilisers, fuels, pesticides and herbicides.
6. Protecting and restoring natural ecosystems; and limiting agricultural land-shifting and urban sprawl.
7. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production whilst recognising the benefits of ruminant fermentation in providing food of high biological value. Supporting well managed livestock systems which improve biodiversity, soil health and act as carbon sinks without the need to clear land. Using technology and improved farming practices such as: improved manure and fertilizer management, carbon neutral regenerative livestock and crop-livestock management practices, and potentially, modification of the constituent archaebacteria which produce methane (Willett et al, 2019; Lean et al, 2021)
8. Responding to the impact of feral and domestic animals on biodiversity and sustainable ecosystems.
9. Improving wild fisheries management to raise the productivity, welfare and environmental performance of aquaculture.
10. Supporting the efforts of farmers and producers to mitigate impacts and optimize gains in sustainability, especially small-scale farmers who are responsible for production of 80% of human food globally.
11. Addressing companion animal ownership to minimise its carbon footprint and environmental impacts.
12. Creating sustainable veterinary workplaces: there are resources available to veterinarians in practice to engage directly in the sustainability agenda:

• Vets for Climate Action have developed a Climate Care Program to integrate sustainable solutions into veterinary workplaces: https://www.vfca.org.au/
• Vet Sustain (vetsustain.org) with Vet Salus (vetsalus.com) have produced the course “A Veterinary Approach to Sustainable Food and Farming” for veterinary professionals involved in livestock production: https://learn.vetsalus.com/

Other relevant policies and position statements:

Climate change and animal health, welfare and production

Native animal welfare (Habitat clearing)

Great veterinary workplaces (ava.com.au)

References

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Alders RG, Chadag M v, Debnath NC et al. Planetary boundaries and Veterinary Services. OIE 5 Scientific and Technical Review 2021;40:1–21.

British Veterinary Association (BVA), Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). (VetFutures, viewed 25-04-24): https://www.vetfutures.org.uk/about/

British Veterinary Association (BVA). Working towards a greener profession. On line 2019. https://www.bva.co.uk/take-action/working-towards-a-greener-profession/

Brondizio, E.S; Settele, J.; Ngo HT; Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem 2.  services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 2019 May. https://zenodo.org/record/3831674

Brundtland Report, UN, 1987: Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (un.org)

Commonwealth of Australia, 2021. Australia – State of the Environment. https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/

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FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2021. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb4474en

IPBES (2019): Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. E. S. Brondizio, J. Settele, S. Díaz, and H. T. Ngo (editors). IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany. 1148 pages. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3831673

Lean IJ, Moate PJ. Invited review. Cattle, climate and complexity: food security, quality and sustainability of the Australian cattle industries. Australian Veterinary Journal 2021;99:293–308

Martens P, Su B, Deblomme S. The Ecological Paw Print of Companion Dogs and Cats. BioScience 2019;69:467– 474.

One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP), Adisasmito WB, Almuhairi S, Behravesh CB, Bilivogui P, Bukachi SA, et al. (2022) One Health: A new definition for a sustainable and healthy future. PLoS Pathog 18(6): e1010537. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1010537

Purvis, B., Mao, Y. & Robinson, D. Three pillars of sustainability: in search of conceptual origins. Sustain Sci 14, 681–695 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5

Read, C. How can the veterinary team help reduce the Carbon Pawprint of pet ownership? 2021. Vet Record. https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.1036

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Searchinger T, Waite R, Hanson C et al. Creating a Sustainable Food Future - A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050 - Final Report. 2019. www.SustainableFoodFuture.org.

Stephens T (ed) (2022), One Welfare in Practice: the role of the veterinarian, CRC Press, Florida USA.

The One Health Commission in the United States (OHC, viewed 25-04-24) https://www.onehealthcommission.org/en/why_one_health/mission_vision_goals_outcomes/

United Nations Environment Programme, 2024. Global Waste Management Outlook: https://www.unep.org/resources/global-waste-management-outlook-2024

United Nations Environment Programme. Making Peace With Nature: A scientific blueprint to. 4 tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies. Nairobi, 2021. https://www.unep.org/resources/making- peace-nature

Willett W, Rockström J, Loken B et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet 2019;393:447–492. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140673618317884