Just wanted to express that I really appreciate your newsletter as a source of thought leadership. Often I find myself wondering about one aspect of the animal advocacy movement or another, and then a few months later you provide a thoughtful summary of the state of play and next steps.
I find this article very well written and respectful of the opposite point of view. However, it seems to me that it does not sufficiently analyze the vision that supports the “drop the assured scheme” claim.
Consumers in rich countries have a choice in the supermarket between animal products from the worst farms, animal products from certified farms that are a little less worse, and plant-based products that completely resolve the issue of suffering.
Among consumers as a whole, some still buy the worst products for price reasons, and will only turn away from them when they are no longer on the market. Others, with a more or less pronounced ethical or ecological conscience, want to spend a little more money to buy a product that doesn't harm (or doesn't harm too much) animals.
The question then is how to convince these consumers to turn away from the worst products, and here opinions differ:
Some think that an excellent solution would be to ensure that for every animal product produced using the worst practices, there is an animal product labeled by an animal advocacy organization, which avoids the worst practices. They feel that getting consumers to turn away from the meat aisle altogether and seek out the plant-based alternative instead is too difficult an objective, and one that has already failed (organizations have been promoting veganism for some time, and it remains an ultra-minority practice). They believe that the counterfactual scenario in which the animalist label would be dropped is one in which consumers would shift to even worse products, with less demanding certifications, and that the impact of such a decision would be net negative.
Others believe that the most effective way to help animals is rather to convey a simple, clear message, encouraging the purchase of plant-based alternatives only (even if the step seems higher for reasons of price and taste quality), leaving all animal products in the same “don't buy” basket. They point out that the industry is very good at humanewashing, and that by creating false labels that give the illusion of quality, the message to consumers becomes too complex ("buy labelled meat, but remember that one label is a scam and another a real improvement"). Above all, in this skeptical perspective on labels, there is a crucial concern to attack the very idea of ethical meat, and to ensure that no animal product benefits from positive qualifications on its label (“humane”, “assured” by an animal advocacy organization, “free-range”...), to maximize the chances that consumers will buy plant-based alternatives (which, on the other hand, benefit from assumed positive communication). In the end, the counterfactual scenario of the proponents of this position does not consist of simply doing away with the animalist label and then sitting back while consumers redirect themselves to less demanding labels. It's about directing as many of our resources as possible towards communicating to consumers in a way that unambiguously encourages them to turn away from animal products altogether.
I find that the article doesn't really address this fundamental difference in strategic views, and that by simply stating at the outset that the RSPCA Assured label “certifies animal products as being less cruelly produced”, it fails to recognize that this is probably not what consumers understand. The logo printed on products doesn't say “less cruelly produced”, it just says “RSPCA Assured”. I think the spontaneous intuition that 99% of people must have here when they have no prior knowledge of the subject, is that if an animal welfare organization gives a certification for the product, it's validating that buying it is ethical. In fact, on the label's website, the page explaining the meaning of the logo (https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/about-us/the-rspca-assured-logo/ ) reads:
The RSPCA Assured label is the RSPCA's ethical farm animal welfare assurance label. The label tells you that a product has come from suppliers that have been assessed by the RSPCA's independent assurance provider to check they meet the RSPCA's strict standards of welfare for farmed animals.
The RSPCA Assured label on products makes it easy to spot products from animals that had a better life so you can feel confident about your choice.
This public formulation is clearly more positive and less realistic than the “less cruelly produced” formula presented in the article to define the label.
Finally, it seems to me incomplete to describe this campaign by Animal Rising and Peta as “infighting”. This campaign against the RSPCA Assured label is not simply directed at the RSPCA. It is also (and perhaps above all) aimed at the public, with posters in public places advising people to go to welfarewashing.org, which has two calls to action: ask the RSPCA to drop its logo, and sign up to a vegan challenge.
What's the point of such a public campaign? One hypothesis is that by attacking the most demanding label and showing that animals endure severe suffering even in farms and slaughterhouses benefiting from the best possible label, they intend to make a striking demonstration that ethical meat doesn't exist. This sends a clear message to ethically-minded consumers: if you want to make an ethical purchase, you can't rely on labelled animal products. You have no alternative but to turn away from animal products altogether.
I think the question is whether this strategy is more or less effective than labeling the least bad animal products, and the answer doesn't seem obvious to me at first.
This section of Lewis' thoughtful piece stood out to me:
"None of this explains why the ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA need to be involved with the certification schemes. Animal Rising and PETA argue that their involvement serves no purpose other than to legitimize the schemes — and meat eating itself.
"I’m sympathetic to Animal Rising’s case here. They’ve likened stamping meat packages with the RSPCA’s logo to stamping cigarettes with the British Heart Foundation’s logo. I don’t think it’s quite the same, but I suspect future generations may disagree. RSPCA Assured used to be called “Freedom Food,” and I think a name like that would avoid conferring the RSPCA’s hard-earned legitimacy on a controversial product."
This feels like a potentially actionable step that the RSPCA could take. Perhaps they could spin-out their accreditation scheme, under a new branding. This might deliver the purported benefits of certification, without the immense weirdness of the RSPCA themselves being seen to endorse the commodification and slaughter of animals.
The RSPCA's brand/legitimacy/"halo" is amazingly strong in the UK, amongst the general population. It's a much-loved, maybe even adored and treasured, national institution. It's hard to quantify, but it seems very plausible that affixing that wonderful brand reputation to packages containing the dead bodies of slaughtered animals really does do lasting damage to our collective, long-term efforts to end animal use and abuse. Having the RSPCA logo on dead animal products on the supermarket shelves seems likely to legitimise the idea that it's morally OK to eat animals - and that any animal with an RSPCA-assured logo on its dead body had an overall net-positive life, which seems far from certain.
I wonder if spinning-out the accreditation scheme is a 'compromise' that the RSPCA might consider making? It would be a (partial) win-win for everyone. The purported benefits of accreditation would still get delivered. The Animal Rising side of the debate would be (partially) satisfied. The controversy and reputational damage to the RSPCA would be somewhat assuaged. It wouldn't be a complete "win" for anyone, but it seems like most parties to this debate would think it's an improvement on the status quo.
The purported benefits of accreditation would still get delivered.
This seems false to me, without the RSPCA's brand behind it, consumers would be less willing to pay a premium for the products, and supermarkets would be less keen to stock them.
Good catch. I think you are probably right, and that this point should be taken into consideration when thinking about whether the benefits of having the RSPCA logo on the dead animals outweighs the dis-benefits.
The original post would probably be better written as "*At least some of* the purported benefits of accreditation would still get delivered."
I wonder, empirically, how big a difference the RSPCA vs non-RSPCA branding would make - I struggle to do anything other than guess about this.
Perhaps there are some consumers who might not buy the animals at all if they weren't endorsed by the RSPCA - though I fear this might be a (very) low number, at least in the immediate term. Over the longer term, though, in terms of cultural shifts and norms, the number could be higher. Hhhmm...
Thank you, some time ago I wrote this piece, thinking that nobody in the field was working in credible certifications. If farmers become used to welfare certifications, soon they can discover that it is in their collective economic interest to support it (as electric utilities have done with climate change).
Thank you! I'm not aware of any US certifiers using CCTV, though I know several use unannounced audits to follow up on farms with bad prior audits or allegations of abuse. My sense is that most European certifiers are similar, though I may be wrong.
Sadly both audits and CCTV footage are almost always kept private. My sense is that there's not yet a big enough carrot (i.e. price premium on certified products) or stick (i.e. reputational harm from refusing public CCTV) to push certified farms to agree to this. My guess is it would require a retailer to say "we'll only sell your products if you install CCTV and share the footage." I hope they'll eventually get there.
I don't want to take up any more of your valuable time but I have to admit that I'm very keen on filling this gap in the US market (maybe by working with trusted food vendors).
Just wanted to put that out there and invite DMs from any other forumites that might be interested in collaborating on more public audits .
Executive summary: The ongoing criticism of animal welfare certification schemes by groups like Animal Rising and PETA highlights valid concerns about misleading labels and the limitations of these programs, but the involvement of major organizations such as ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA is crucial for incremental progress and systemic change in reducing animal suffering.
Key points:
Animal welfare certifications like GAP and RSPCA Assured face criticism for misleading consumers about the conditions of farmed animals, though they reduce some of the worst cruelties in farming.
While these certifications are imperfect, they play a critical role in improving animal welfare through incremental progress and by setting baselines for future legal and corporate reforms.
Misrepresentation and enforcement issues in certification schemes need stronger monitoring and accountability, which can be achieved through measures like unannounced audits, CCTV, and AI tools.
Critics argue that the involvement of groups like ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA legitimizes meat consumption; however, their participation prevents certification programs from being weakened or co-opted by industry interests.
Efforts to end factory farming cannot rely on consumer choices alone but require systemic changes through laws, corporate policies, and technology, where certification programs have a supporting role.
Activist groups like Animal Rising and PETA contribute essential pressure to drive awareness and reform, complementing the incremental approach of certification bodies.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
The world’s three largest animal welfare groups are under attack. Their antagonists are not factory farmers, but other animal groups. And the ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA stand accused not of hurting farmers, but of hurting animals, through their work with GAP and RSPCA Assured, which certify animal products as being less cruelly produced.
The attacks began last summer when the UK animal rights group Animal Rising released a report and footage showing abuses on RSPCA Assured farms. They’ve since forced the RSPCA to cancel its 200th year celebrations, plastered portraits of RSPCA patron King Charles, and persuaded the ceremonial president and two vice-presidents of the RSPCA to resign in protest. (To understand their perspective, I recommend this interview with Animal Rising co-director Ben Newman.)
A few months ago, PETA launched a new front in the war, taking out full-page ads in the The New York Times and The Washington Post slamming the ASPCA and HSUS for associating with GAP. (Ingrid Newkirk laid out PETA’s case here.) PETA activists have since picketed the homes of the CEOs of both groups, disrupted the organizations’ fundraising events, and persuaded actor James Cromwell to throw away an HSUS award.
“It has to stop” is how I feel about PETA’s campaign against the ASPCA and HSUS. Image: PETA’s full-page ads in the New York Times and Washington Post. Source: PETA.
With friends like these
I originally planned to write a newsletter about infighting. I would have argued that our movement lacks the resources to spare some to attack one another. And I would have cited a 2023 survey by the Social Change Lab, in which 120 social movement academics rated “internal conflict or movement infighting” as the gravest internal threat to social movement success.
But there’s an irony in criticizing infighting: you risk becoming an infighter yourself. And I’m hardly an impartial observer: I used to work at HSUS, and at Open Philanthropy we’ve funded GAP, HSUS, the RSPCA, and RSPCA Assured — but not Animal Rising or PETA. It’s too easy to decry infighting when it’s the other side doing it. So instead I’ll refer you to my favorite scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, in which the People’s Front of Judea derides the Judean People’s Front.
I also don’t want to attack Animal Rising or PETA. Animal Rising has mobilized thousands of young people to decry our society’s indifference to mass animal suffering. PETA put animal rights on the map, trained some of our movement’s best activists (including the CEO of HSUS), and won the first corporate cage-free victories.
Instead, I want to engage with their criticisms of GAP and RSPCA Assured. Broadly, they make three: (1) the certifications are misleading, (2) they fail to stop cruelty, and (3) the involvement of the ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA legitimizes them — and meat eating. I’ll take each in turn.
“Humanely raised” and misleadingly labeled
Animal Rising and PETA are right about one thing: humane labels can be misleading. Put aside the semantic debate about whether meat can ever be “humane”; I suspect most consumers think certification labels mean more than they do. In a 2021 survey by Farm Forward, a GAP board member-turned-skeptic, 39% of respondents mistakenly thought that GAP labels mean that animals are raised with consistent access to the outdoors.
Animal Rising also points out that the RSPCA Assured website claims “we do not allow factory farming on our scheme.” That’s a stretch. Most GAP and RSPCA Assured meat comes from higher-welfare indoor farms that still look an awful lot like factory farms.
I’d prefer more specific labels. When GAP started, its labels listed welfare levels from one to five and explained what each level meant (“Step 3, enhanced outdoor access”). But the labels now simply read “Animal Welfare Certified,” regardless of the GAP level, perhaps because marketers at Whole Foods, which sells most GAP meat, saw that ambiguity doesn’t drive sales.
The biggest obstacle to fixing this is that everyone else is doing it. Chicken certified by American Humane Certified, which has much weaker standards than GAP, is labeled “humanely raised on family farms.” This works: the same Farm Forward survey found that consumers thought that American Humane Certified was at least as strong as GAP. So if GAP weakens its label, consumers may just switch to worse meat with better labels.
The answer is for the government to step in. The USDA recently tried to do so, but ultimately gave way to industry pressure to allow any label the industry believes is true. The EU and UK are considering bolder reforms: to create multi-tiered welfare labeling schemes, though the industry is lobbying to make them voluntary. For better models look to Denmark, whose three-tier scheme is voluntary but widely followed, and Germany, which just enacted a mandatory five-tier scheme for pork.
In the meantime, retailers should stop the sale of misleadingly labeled meat. Whole Foods led the way in this, requiring all meat in stores to be labeled at its GAP levels. But while GAP was recently finalizing new stronger rules, Whole Foods announced that it would allow for other weaker, but better-sounding, meat certifications. The test for retailers should be simple: can consumers accurately work out the animals’ welfare from the label? I suspect most current labels fail that standard.
This chicken was not humanely raised on family farms or fed an optimal diet. Hormones and steroids weren’t added to that diet, but only because adding them to chicken feed is illegal. And the chicken likely suffered for lack of antibiotics in a wretched environment. But the label does look nice.
Imperfect progress
To Animal Rising and PETA, such label fixes are not enough. Their complaint is not just with GAP and RSPCA Assured’s labels, but the schemes themselves. They point out that the schemes’ own standards allow for continued cruelties, like keeping animals permanently crowded in giant barns.
This is true. But for me the question is not whether these certifications end all cruelty, but whether they reduce it. They do: their standards prohibit some of the worst cruelties common on standard factory farms, like battery cages and gestation crates — and none of the recent investigations I’ve seen found these on certified farms. RSPCA Assured farms are already free of frankenchickens and GAP farms will be by 2030.
Of course, GAP and RSPCA Assured could raise their standards. And bothare. But if they go too far too fast, costs and prices will rise, and farms and consumers will defect to the biggest competitors of each scheme: American Humane Certified and Red Tractor, each of which has much weaker standards (see chart below). Overall, animal welfare would get worse, not better.
This doesn’t mean we should just accept low standards. But the right target is not the certifiers but the retailers. As corporate campaigns push retailers to remove the cruelest products from their shelves — as most UK retailers have now done with caged eggs — certifiers can raise their standards without getting undercut by lower-welfare competition.
Still, Animal Rising and PETA have a point that many GAP and RSPCA Assured farms aren’t following the standards they claim to. Their investigations have found repeated violations of standards requiring things like care for sick animals, and I doubt that things are better when investigators aren’t around. The RSPCA acknowledged as much in sanctioning nine of the 40 farms Animal Rising investigated and kicking another three out of the scheme.
But the answer to this is more certification, not less. Animal Rising’s campaign has led RSPCA Assured to announce an upgraded enforcement regime, including more unannounced audits and greater use of CCTV. This is good. And soon AI tools will allow for certifiers to continuously monitor conditions in every certified barn. When they do, the certifiers should adopt them.
In this comparison of broiler chicken welfare standards, RSPCA Assured standards have a lot more green squares than their competitors. I recommend checking out the full chart, plus similar ones comparing global certification standards for hens, pigs, and cows. Source: Compassion in World Farming.
Sins of omission
None of this explains why the ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA need to be involved with the certification schemes. Animal Rising and PETA argue that their involvement serves no purpose other than to legitimize the schemes — and meat eating itself.
I’m sympathetic to Animal Rising’s case here. They’ve likened stamping meat packages with the RSPCA’s logo to stamping cigarettes with the British Heart Foundation’s logo. I don’t think it’s quite the same, but I suspect future generations may disagree. RSPCA Assured used to be called “Freedom Food,” and I think a name like that would avoid conferring the RSPCA’s hard-earned legitimacy on a controversial product.
I’m less sympathetic to PETA’s case. I don’t think anyone buys GAP certified products because the ASPCA and HSUS are on GAP’s board. Indeed, I doubt many people even knew that the groups were associated before PETA’s campaign. I also don’t think endorsing less cruel standards means endorsing meat, just as I don’t think public health groups endorsed junk food when they joined Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative, which partnered with Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and others to reduce sugar and sodium in their foods.
And I doubt that many people care what the big animal groups think they should eat. If they did, they’d get a clear message: the ASPCA, HSUS, and RSPCA all say people should eat less meat. The HSUS runs the nation’s largest institutional meat reduction program, and has long endured industry attacks for being anti-meat, as have more recently the ASPCA and RSPCA.
Now that these groups face attacks from both sides, they may be tempted to just avoid controversial work for farmed animals. Nonprofits generally only get attacked for action, not inaction. Run a rescue group that refuses to take in unadoptable animals, and no one will complain. Run a shelter of last resort that euthanizes unadoptable animals, and everyone will. The easiest option would be for the big groups to dump the certification schemes.
Easy, but wrong. The predictable result would be that the schemes would either cease to exist or be taken over by industry. Without the RSPCA’s support, RSPCA Assured would likely fold, its farms moving over to the weaker Red Tractor certification. Without the ASPCA and HSUS, GAP would fall more firmly under the control of Whole Foods and big producers. Neither outcome seems good for animals.
An end to one percent solutions
I think the most compelling case against the certification schemes is that they cause us to focus in the wrong place: on individual consumer decisions rather than system-wide changes. Just as veganism has remained stubbornly stuck at around one percent of the US population, so has consumption of truly higher-welfare meat. The reality is that we can’t end factory farming one purchasing decision at a time.
Instead we need to focus on the biggest levers of social change, like laws, corporate policies, and technology. The certifiers have a role to play in all three. Their voluntary baseline standards can form the basis for future laws, just as the voluntary HACCP food safety system later became part of US and EU regulations. They can audit companies’ implementation of welfare pledges like the Better Chicken Commitment. And they can facilitate the adoption of new technology, just as Germany’s KAT certification recently helped implement the end of the killing of day-old male chicks in the country.
Animal Rising and PETA also have a major role to play. Their institutional goals will differ: Animal Rising’s institutional campaigns have focused on getting UK universities to go plant-based, while PETA’s have lately focused on getting US retailers to stop selling coconut milk made with forced monkey labor. They both also use shock tactics to wake people up to the cruelties of factory farming — just as the best radical campaigns throughout history have done. Indeed, PETA videos played a major role in educating me about factory farming 25 years ago.
It’s hard to strike the right balance between idealism and pragmatism. PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk once said of Temple Grandin, who designs more humane slaughterhouses, that she “has done more to reduce suffering in the world than any other person who has ever lived.” Dr. Grandin in turn has told me that her work would be impossible without the pressure that advocacy groups put on food companies to reform. We need both approaches — and more.
In a world largely indifferent to factory farming, we are a small — but growing — group fighting it. We need all the help we can get: from vegans and omnivores, moderates and radicals, urbanites and farmers. We also need to experiment with many different tactics to maximize our shots on goals. This will cause plenty of healthy disagreement. And that’s ok. But I hope we can remember that the things we agree on — that animals’ suffering matters, that factory farming is a moral atrocity, and that it must end — are ultimately much more important.
Thanks to Animal Rising’s Ben Newman and Simple Heart’s Wayne Hsiung for reviewing a draft of this essay. Their clarifications and suggestions improved it, though they still disagree on several key points.
This is the third in a sequence of posts taken from my recent report: Why Did Environmentalism Become Partisan?
Summary
Rising partisanship did not make environmentalism more popular or politically effective. Instead, it saw flat or falling overall public opinion, fewer major legislative achievements, and fluctuating executive actions.
Public Opinion...
I think right now EAs might be making a significant mistake by paying insufficient attention to the political realm. As EAs we tend to figure out what’s most impactful for us to work on and focus hard. That’s great! But there are various actions that are ‘non-delegatable’ - the extent to which an individual can do the action is limited (like voting, going to a protest, making hard money contributions to particular campaigns). It might be useful if we were all more in the habit of doing variou...
This post presents the executive summary from Giving What We Can’s impact evaluation for 2025. At the end of this post we share links to more information, including the full report and...
Just wanted to express that I really appreciate your newsletter as a source of thought leadership. Often I find myself wondering about one aspect of the animal advocacy movement or another, and then a few months later you provide a thoughtful summary of the state of play and next steps.