Nexus on animal proteins and the climate change: The plant-based proteins are part of the solution?

Abstract

The study aim was to assess the environmental impacts and costs of the entire production chain of animal and plant-based proteins, including the normalization and weighting steps, environmental charges prices, and the market potential of emerging plant-based proteins. Here, through the life cycle assessment tool, seven impact categories were evaluated for the production of 1 kg of plant-based feedstock with high protein potential (soybean, chickpea, and lentil) and animal proteins (bovine, pork, and poultry) under production systems of greater commercial relevance. Subsequently, the burger formulation (113 g) was defined as a standard functional unit to compare the scenarios previously evaluated. The results showed that emerging plant-based proteins and animal protein from poultry have better environmental performance when compared directly to animal proteins from bovine and pork. Among the findings of this study, the belief that the energy consumption demanded by the grain processing step is higher when compared to animal slaughter was broken. In a proportional analysis, the production costs of animal protein showed average values of 3.73 USD/burger, while the plant-based proteins were 0.31 USD/burger. On the other hand, the costs related to greenhouse gas emissions were 0.02 USD/burger for both scenarios evaluated. In view of this, it is possible to identify that just linking environmental benefits as the object of choice for the consumption of plant-based proteins is not the best strategy for the global climate change solution, once animal proteins from poultry also presented a satisfactory environmental performance, being ranked first under the endpoint weighting methodology.