What’s Cooking? – Key Findings and Executive Summary

This report focuses on the potential environmental, health, social and animal welfare implications of the uptake of novel meat and dairy alternatives, in particular novel plant-based, fermentation-derived and cultivated products. A team of interdisciplinary experts has assessed the available evidence on the impacts of these alternatives in comparison with their conventional counterparts, identifying pertinent considerations for policymakers involved in regulating, investing in or providing other support for novel meat and dairy products and highlighting research gaps. The report does not explore in depth how developing and shifting to novel alternatives compares with other strategies for reducing the negative impacts of the current meat and dairy industry, such as substituting meat and dairy with more traditional vegetarian and vegan products (e.g. tofu, tempeh), developing insects as a source of human and animal feed, promoting extensive and regenerative animal agriculture, reducing meat and dairy demand through pricing (e.g. meat taxes) or direct interventions to reduce animal emissions (e.g. feed additives). Full report is available at: https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/44236