NOTE 1: This process was exploratory and rigorous, but not comprehensive. We did not research all 275 ideas in depth. As such, our decision not to take forward a charity idea to the point of writing a full report should not be seen as a view that the idea is not good.

NOTE 2: Scores contain artifacts so should be used with caution. E.g. sometimes ideas that were scored before others tended to be get more extreme scores. Also some good ideas have artificially low scores e.g. if we know someone is working on it or want to wait for more information, etc.

THANKS: Some ideas on this list were contributed by people and organisations outside of Charity Entrepreneurship. We have not credited every idea but are highly grateful to those who added ideas and supported our research at all stages.

STAGE 2 – quick prioritisation

STAGE 3 – shallow dive

STAGE 4 – Crucial considerations analysis

STAGE 5 – Deep dive

1nd Decision (QP)

Evidence strength

1st Decision (Sam, Karolina, Akhil, Vicky) – for decisions in gray (Sam, Akhil Vicky)

CEA updated
WP/year/$

Rank
updated (31/05/2022)

Scores at 9th Aug

Apply animal welfare law in high welfare countries to imports, do not allow imports of products that are under the bar (extend animal welfare law to cover imports)

Idea acidentally removed then readded

Interventions could include:
Coordinating local animal welfare and EA chapters, helping to share learning and resources
Slightly broader university outreach
Create a distinct EA Animal Welfare Forum
Run events and conferences
Supporting and funding animal rights student groups (especially in LMICs)
Graduate scheme focused on animal welfare for top talent, animal welfare uni course etc.

The use of live bait fish is a really horrible thing, with the fish being used on the hook for recreational fishing whilst still alive so is obviously very painful. It seems like this is an uncontroversially horrible thing, so could have more wide support eg. see PAZ's work on it in France
https://zoopolis.fr/petition-pour-que-decathlon-cesse-de-vendre-des-poissons/

96 (but high varriance, maybe negative -116 in bad case scenario)

Many potential ways to do this:
- Make inspection a duty rather than a power of local authorities- policy change
- Advocate for quotas for the number of inspections that need to be conducted
- Advocate for transparent and public reporting at inspections
- Advocate for increasing penalities for noncompliance with welfare laws
- Three strikes and you’re out system for non compliance with welfare standards
- Legal action against national inspection authorities for not enforcing animal welfare laws
- Noncompliance awareness campaigns to generate political pressure to enforce harsher penalties and more inspections. Campaigns can focus on non-compliance wither with corporate commitments, or breaches of existing regulations/laws

Increasing inspections does seem promsiing. There do seem to be loop holes that people jump though to dodge inspections. No insepections for chickens in sheads across whole of EU.

Added this idea

More research

Sam – 10h on insects

NOTE 3: Some names have been redacted from this spreadsheet but full credit is given where appropriate in our final reports.
These final reports will be published shortly on our website at: https://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/research

[] = name redacted

this could include:
1. ban development of fast growing breeding
According to https://welfarefootprint.org/ the biggest source for pain for (non-egg laying) chickens is hunger as they are using fast growing breeds of hens that are kept on restricted diets. "chronic hunger in broiler breeders is estimated to be the greatest source of physical pain that any individual chicken will endure over her life. Female breeders from fast-growing strains are estimated to experience 2,000 hours of Disabling pain and 4,170 hours in Hurtful pain as a result of hunger due to feed restriction. Interventions to mitigate the effects of hunger other than the adoption of slower-growing birds are still limited" They also say that the fish indusrty is looking at "increasingly shorter lifespans, and the production of animals with ever higher meat yields." Maybe we can pre-empt this by calling for bans prior to the development of these breeds
2. Improve welfare of very young farmed fish in hatcheries

Do breeding practcies cause pain for fish

NOTE 4: All links have been removed to ensure there are no links to internal documents that have not been prepared for publication

This could be at the farm level - penalizing farmers for farming too many animals leading to culling animals eg. male chick culling - or at the corporation level eg. penalising Tesco for overpurchasing meat/animal products and then throwing these products away
Case for this type of intervention taken from this Vox article - https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22890292/food-waste-meat-dairy-eggs-milk-animal-welfare
 
Possible interventions include:
At the farmer level, there could be penalties/conditional subsidisation depending on levels of waste/culling
At the retail level, there could be corporate campaigns to reduce level of animal product waste
At the consumer level, there could bed education about food waste?

Use global development M&E skills and apply it to the animal movement. This could help raise the bar for evidence-based work in the animal movement and help spread important norms. Alternatively, they could focus on direct animal work like with FWI and help us learn how to apply Givewell concepts to animal issues.

Sam to read Juliette's notes

Interventions could include
- Contraception for rodents/pigeons/other liminal animals
- Ban glue traps AND rodenticides (anticoagulants, cholecalciferol and non-toxic cellulose)

Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation in other countries (right wing advocacy group)

Look to see what is happening already

Key uncertaity: what is being done already - talk to experts (Doris, others?)

Things that it could include:
- Gov guidance for animal welfare for farming
- Work on cage-free, similar to EAST model (Sam: Not sure this is policy)

More research - what are existing orgs working on?

Maybe – but no for now

Underlined text = link removed

Organisation that helps identify and support locals within Asia who care about the animal welfare movement could help existing and emerging organizations carry out more effective work

Case study of EU policy regranting. Mapping trajectory of work on fish. How research on fish is

AAA might be doing this
Maybe have call

this could include a consultancy that helps companies that have already made corporate commitments o help them meet their animal welfare commitments. (Could also be part of future commitments to seek such support)

Farmed animals

Has this worked? Should be proactive and working on key commitments

This could include a moratorium period on beginning to farm any new kind of animal that is not already well-established as a farm animal while adequate welfare research takes place

Octopus farming seems like the main one, but there might be other opportunities. I expect that preventative action is much more tractable than retrospective action to abolish an industry that has already been developed. E.g. see "It is probably easier to abolish a practice through legislation if that practice is not in regular use" here: https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/death-penalty#the-causes-of-legislative-change . Relatedly, I have in my head a model where anti octopus farming legislation in one country makes anti octopus farming legislation in another. E.g. see "Once influential international bodies adopt a value, they may exert pressure on institutions in other parts of the world to adopt the same value" at the same link as above.
 
This could include:
- Stop octopus farming before it really takes off
- Stop insect farming before it becomes more prominent

Farmed animals

To research
- How do we expect the octopus industry to grow.
- Will it move to china

Options:
• Octopus
• Lanternfishes
• Fast growing fish

Many orgs working on octopus. Scale is (38m) octopus caught each yeach. Maybe unique opportunity to prevent an industry. Pushing it board not a huge risk (based on case of fur).
Maybe eels, maybe lantern fish, not happening yet.

GFI Europe currently refining our shortlist of countries we want to expand our policy work to, loads of high-impact ones on the list and we won't be able to do them all

(Note we already have France specifically on our list)

Could talk to GFI if had a bit more time to look into this

eg. Tell someone to work in the Philippines, map the scale of animals being farmed etc. but get them to go out to the country and do scoping (we could also provide resources on how to do this well) and then get them to figure out what to work on
 
This would include identifying high priority countries and poetntial welfare isues, and an organisation scoping out the best interventions. Places to consider might include:
- Somewhere in the MIddle East
- Phillipines

Combined into FWI v.2 then uncombined

a. Establish stronger monitoring and site assessment systems to locate farms based on low sea lice levels.
b. Create no-farming zones to break sea lice dispersal.
c. Enhance communication between farmers to: i. Synchronize treatment among neighboring farms and avoid
reinfection after successful treatment; Communicate about treatments that succeeded or failed in similar
areas; Synchronize fallow periods (the period of time between cycles of fish) to allow sea lice infestations to dissipate.

In farmers interests - would it happen anyway?
Industy has an incentive to do this in the UK. Somewhat harder to find ifomation elsehwere - consider other high production countries outside of the UK and Norway (eg. Chile) and judge whether it looks like they would do this anyway, whether industry is capable of this

Might be better to focus on ensuring subsidies for farmers being conditional on welfare not being negatively impacted or getting governments to subsidise farmers switching to slow-growing broiler breeds

Farms receive subsidies from the government currently based on things like farm size -> instead subsidies should only be given to high welfare farms -> encouraging higher welfare production
 
- Public money for public goods - Only giving subsidies to farmers with high welfare standards - not as promising?
- Subsidies for farmers being conditional on welfare not being negatively impacted (eg. no focus on efficient farming/intensification/modernisation etc.)
- Get governments to subsidise farmers switching to slow-growing broiler breeds (eg. supporting the BCC) as in the UK

Idea list / mission form list and readded

Consider doing Aquatic Animal Alliance's method of 1. Campaigning to certifiers to include certain welfare requirements in their certification standards -> 2. Campaigning corporations to only buy from these certifiers eg. for turkeys and other neglected animals

mapping/more research on existing certifiers and what they are doing

See Lewis Bollard blog on documentaries
 
Interventions could include:
1. Dubbing and subtitles of existing successful documentaries into other high priority languages e.g. Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic etc.
2. Promotion and marketing of existing documentaries in broader circles and to high priority areas
3. Creating documentaries targeting high priority areas where there is currently an undersupply of documentaries regarding animal welfare

Sam to see what he can find in 45 min

Main benefits of this will be the reduction in animals killed as food for these carnivorous species, as production will just switch to a different (herbivorous) species
- Note that if herbivorous fish are smaller than the carnivorous fish species currently farmed then you may have to farm more individuals to meet the same consumer demand per gram (though likely still a reducion in total individuals farmed)
 
This could include:
- bans/restrictions on farming or sale of carnivorous fish
- Market based interventions
- A tax on FMFO imports (or fish production)
- Looking into alternative, vegan feeds

More research. Run through stage 3 without rethink pov

ideas include:
- aquatic noise reduction
- remove exemptions from law for wild fish farming
- Purchasing catch shares in fisheries to reduce fishing
- Improvement of Demersal and Beam Trawl Management:
a. Introduce seasonal restrictions.
b. Build a timeline for ending demersal and beam trawling entirely and substitute with more welfare-friendly and sustainable capture methods
"Welfare Improvements in Marine Capture Fisheries
a. Minimise time during capture and landing and decrease risk of injuries and pre-stunning death
b. Develop legislation for humane capture and slaughter for <country> vessels and those fishing in <country> waters"

please note that the following ideas that affect wild fish are listed independently
- reducing bycatch

Maybe could do some scenario modelling about wild fish beliefs

I think it is fair to say that some fish species are worse off in farms than others. Often these are the ones farmed in the West because they have the resources to make it work regardless (Salmon being the biggest example). There are also some people working on trying to find good species for future farming, of which a welfare element could be included.

Increasing the price of animal products (as it makes raising animals more expensive) but does not relate to animal welfare

"There is also a large disparity in the funding of animal welfare science at the EU level which forms the basis of many EU laws: 80% of the average €15 million in annual EU funding for research on animal welfare is spent on experimental animals, of which there are ~12 million, while only 20% goes to farmed animals (including aquaculture), of which there are several billion."
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/k7W3nz8ME3uxEcm7E/ways-eu-law-might-matter-for-farmed-animals#What_is_the_landscape_of_farmed_animal_welfare_in_Europe_

The idea is to try out different WAW intervntions. The problem with that is that without a lot of research we wouldn't even know if they are positive or negative. On the other hand, some would argue that it could have good impact on the WAW movement. Examples of interventions to try: reducing aquatic noise, lobbying to ban neonicotinoids (a harmful and widespread pesticide), reducing light pollution, promoting bird-safe glass, restoring natural forage, reducing abandoned fishing gear in the oceans, further restricting fireworks, using sterilants instead of more cruel methods of population control, lobbying for banning glue traps for rodents. Animal Ethics lists some counterexamples of interventions that would tackle natural wild animal suffering here. Almost all of these are about lobbying the governments in some way.

Often farmers in Non-Western countries don't have access to vets etc. As such, they often rely on feed and medicine suppliers for guidance. This can lead to things like feed manufacturers selling them feed with higher protein content than they need (bad for fish and means more FMFO)

We've heard a few times that the people who supply spawn are often 'milking' their fish too many times a year and that is resulting in 'poor quality' juvenile fish. Someone calling for better broodstock welfare standards may have positive ripple affects across all the fish born from those brood fish

40% of worldwide wild fish catch is byfish (fish foward EU). There seem to be some existing techniques that reduce bycaatch, but not a whole lot. Space may benefit from additional research into methods.
Intervention may include: Creating regulations and standards for fishing methods to limit (or perhaps ban) those that have high rates of bycatch

Judicial reviews are where you can challenge farming practices as being contrary to legislation eg. see The Humane League's challenge of the use of fast growing breeds

Silk bans have been successful, some on animal welfare rationale (ASOS), others due to other welfare concerns e.g. human health issues, child labor issues, slavery on farms
 
Two main ideas are:
- Improved local silk welfare standards+ ban on import from low welfare countries
- Workingto improve hygiene (and hence welfare standards) in countries with high production e.g. India, ?China

Insects/invertebrate

Fish stunting - they keep young fish for longer and feed them less so that the fish grow more when farmers first purchase them and have them in their ponds

Tilapia virus has a huge mortality, and there is the beginnings of clinical research that shows it is potentially quite feasible to breed resistant strains, that would reduce suffering and deaths

Not scored at this stage - reframing of
"Improved welfare for silk and/or ban on
import from low welfare countries" at stage 3

Lack of evidence as to sentience

Added as new version of silk idea

Combined into "Advancing research into neglected and large scale
animal welfare issues- earmarking funds and outreach to academics"

Combined into "country first approach"

Greater coordination on Fish strategy strategy in EU

Combined into "Regranting and coordination org on key issues fish,
wild animals etc."

Things that it could include as tactics:
- Gov guidance for animal welfare for farming
- Work on stocking density
- Keeping farmers extensive under the guise of 'traditional natural farming'

eg. Banning octopus farming, legislation that makes it more difficult in some way

Reducing population sizes - assumes they have a net negative life

Insects/invertebrate

It's also possible that you could take the token model and use it in other contexts? Like maybe Western organizations can buy tokens in order to just generally offset/encourage better welfare practices in their Asia supply chain.

Farmed animals

Penalizes farming carnivorous species of fish/makes carnivorous fish more expensive -> reduces number of carnivorous fishes farmed -> less fish killed for consumption by carnivorous fish and less fish killed for human consumption (the carnivorous species themselves)

Cochineal is the name of both a type of insect and an extract produced from that insect. The extract produced from the insect is used to produce carmine, a deep red dye used primarily in food and cosmetics. Cochineals are harvested, dried out, and ground up to produce this dye.
[Cochineal are still mostly captured from the wild, though they are starting to be farmed]

Insects/invertebrate

Significant burden of silkworm suffering is due to disease. Hygiene improvements reduce disease, which is also beneficial for farms because disease loss is expensive for them. Some concern that this could result in more silkworms being produced overall, but I am not convinced that this is the case.

Insects/Invertebrates

EU alt protein org on national level in neglected countires

Fish stocking is the practice of raising fish in hatcheries and releasing them into rivers, lakes, or the ocean, usually for recreational fishing.

Insects/Invertebrates

A trade association is an organisation that brings together people who share a common interest. There seems to be one in Switzerland that may be helpful:
https://vegconomist.com/politics-law/switzerland-alt-protein-leaders-join-forces-to-form-the-swiss-protein-association/

Some very harmful pesticides are used (slower, more painful deaths for insects)
 
Ideas could include:
- make agricultural subsidies conditional on it
- Remove the VAT reduction on insecticides
- Promote/subsidise humane insecticides

Could include Advocating for eventual species-specific fish welfare requirements at the EU level
There are indistry codes of practice (eg. RSPCA) but nothing in the law
Note: in the UK it seems like most farms do follow the RSPCA's code of practice, so the counterfactual impact might be small

Insects/invertebrate

Greater coordination on Chick culling strategy in EU

Farms receive subsidies from the government currently based on things like farm size -> instead subsidies should only be given to high welfare farms -> encouraging higher welfare production

Reports from India, Japan and Turkey showing high levels of toxic metals- lead and cadmium in particular- in farmed fish. This causes significant stress to fish, and also poses a significant health risk to humans.

- Insects
- Extend existing protections in law to species currently not included (crustaceans, fish, other invertebrates)
- Wild caught fish currently have no protections (though worried that making wild caught fishing more difficult will just lead to more aquaculture)

Informs consumers of the welfare of the animal product they are consuming, allowing them to choose higher welfare products -> reducing consumption of lower welfare products

Potential worries about SARP, especially with manure treatment
Workers rights could be could for pushing up prices but also because acts of cruelty/negligence seem to be correlated with working conditions (source: George)

- An audit company that checks if corporates are keeping their commitements
- Policy clarity about the extent to which companies might be liable for fraud for intentionally breaking corporate commitments
- Make it a legal requirement to follow through on corporate commitments
- Org that ensures corporate commitments (new and existing) have explicit compliance and transparency asks
- scale up things like eggwatch in other regions

Michael Toscano (mentor to Healthier Hens) said that he thinks piling and toe pecking are going to be the dominant welfare/behavior issue (alongside Keel fractures) in laying hens in 5-15 years

What is piling?
"Piling is a behavior in laying hens whereby individuals aggregate in larger densities than would be normally expected. When piling behavior leads to mortalities it is known as smothering and its frequent but unpredictable occurrence is a major concern for many egg producers."

Maybe best tackled with farmer level inteventions?

Lobbying for laws that require humane education, which includes teaching about kindness and compassion to all living beings. There are several states in the USA where this exists.

"Humane education" in schools which teaches students about the cruelty on animal farming practices -> reduction in consumption of animal products (likely in the long term, though not much evidence of long term effects)

[Haven is keen on this]

FWI say: Our main weapon is the overuse of antibiotics across aquaculture.
We keep animals in terribel conditions where disease spreads easily and mass feed them antibiotics. If this stopped we would have to be more careful about the conidtions they were kept in so animal welfare would increase. This can also help limit human health AMR problems. Also post COVID is a good time to focus on this and myabe possible to get many countries on board. (This may apply more to smaller animals so has the reverse to small animal repalcemnt problem?). I expect there are some ways this goes wrong for example we develop antibiotics that don’t work on humans so no longer care about overusing them on animals etc.
+ 1 this idea with the note that it is quite tractable at the moment. This is happening in the EU for domestic animals from January 2022. Potential for an organisation to advocate for this within the UK, extend this to imported animal products, or to advocate for same in other countries.

Conditional liberalization is where tariffs are reduced based on animal welfare - if the welfare practices of an import are the same as in the importing country then tariffs will be reduced/not placed on the product, but high tariffs will be placed on poor animal welfare products (making them cost more -> reducing consumption -> reducing production) - potentially also encourages higher welfare farming to reduce tariffs

Farmed animals