Feed has a major bearing on animal health and welfare. It’s also often the largest cost in livestock production and is increasingly under the spotlight for its substantial environmental impacts.

The challenge

What we choose to feed livestock matters because it relates to how we manage about half of the agricultural land on the planet, 80 percent of which is grasslands. In our oceans, over a fifth of wild catch goes into feed – depleting stocks, which itself contributes to climate change.

For greenhouse gas emissions, feed contributes to about 45% of the total impact related to livestock. Meeting future feed demand would require approximately 280 million hectares of additional land by 2030 which is impossible to meet with existing protein crop sources.

Concerted action to improve the impact of animal feed is a necessity now, for all businesses in the livestock supply chain.

Download the Feed Behind Our Food report

Our solution

Recognising the lack of methods to assess and compare different feedstocks, our cross-sector working group developed Feed Compass principles. This is a holistic set of criteria for sustainable feed that’s fit for the future. We are now working to showcase examples of how this can be applied practically by piloting it inside a select number of businesses to help shape their decision-making processes around sourcing and supply chains.

The Feed Compass collaboration intend to play a leading role in convening companies to develop stronger, more ambitious commitments on feed and develop other market incentives to increase feed sustainability. This involves working with partners to extend our reach internationally.

Qualities of Sustainable Animal Feed:

The Feed Compass principles are designed to provide an easy-to-communicate, top-line method of evaluating feed sustainability and guiding decision making:

Benefits for Organisations

The Feed Compass collaboration brokers conversations across the value chain – from feed companies, protein producers and NGOs, to retailers and food service companies.

By participating, organisations can be better positioned to realise new business opportunities and mitigate risks.

Join us

Joining Feed Compass provides new pre-competitive opportunities for organisations to engage on this urgent global challenge.

We are inviting you, as ambitious and pioneering collaborators, to transform animal feed sustainability and achieve a future-fit protein system.

For more information, contact Roberta Iley, Principal Change Designer

Contact Roberta

Who’s involved?

The Feed Compass project is led by an ambitious and diverse group of international retailers, food manufacturers, feed ingredient companies, innovators and NGOs from across the food system. It forms part of the Protein Challenge 2040 coalition. Our partners and supporters include:

Stay up-to-date

• Visit the Futures Centre to keep track of trends, insights and opportunities for the protein sector.
• Get the latest on this project straight to your inbox.
• Join the conversation on our Protein Challenge 2040 Linkedin Group, and on Twitter #Protein2040.
• See results of the Feed Survey
• For further reading on the Feed Compass check out this blog series: Part 1: Why pay attention to animal feed? | Part 2: Current action on feed sustainability | Part 3: Our work to shift the feed system