| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Cost-effectiveness for The Humane League's work for laying hens (2022) | |||||||||
2 | • The Humane League has been extremely successful in pressuring large multi-national corporations to commit to improving the minimum welfare standards for animal products used in their supply chain. For their cage-free egg campaigns in particular, they estimated the 2022 cost to free one hen from confinement by dividing the number of animals affected by commitments they achieved in that year by the cost of those campaigns. | |||||||||
3 | • We're comfortable using an estimate from the charity itself because (a) this charity comes recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators and several other independent charity evaluators, (b) this charity has been recognised for their outstanding transparency in particular, (c) this estimate is more conservative than the 3rd party estimate provided in the "General cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for poultry (2005-18)" section below | |||||||||
4 | • More information on this estimate is available here. | |||||||||
5 | Cage-free (i.e. laying hens) | |||||||||
6 | Total US cage-free budget for 2022 | $14,706,498 | ||||||||
7 | Total number of hens covered by commitments in 2022 | 5,600,000 | ||||||||
8 | Dollars to move one animal-spot in the company supply chain cage-free | $2.63 | ||||||||
9 | Predicted length that the commitment lasts (conservative) | 4 | ||||||||
10 | Lifespan of factory farmed laying hen | 1.3 | ||||||||
11 | Dollars to impact one animal | $0.85 | ||||||||
12 | ||||||||||
13 | General cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns for poultry (2005-18) | |||||||||
14 | • "Corporate campaigns" in the context of fixing factory farming of poultry involves publically pressuring corporating that buy factory farmed poultry products to commit to switching to products that meet far higher welfare standards by a certain date. These campaigns work by making consumers and shareholders of these corporations aware of the suffering in their supply chains, which puts these corporations' brand and share price at risk, incentivising them to make the changes. | |||||||||
15 | • This is an estimate of the cost-effectiveness of past campaigns (rather than of a marginal dollar spent on these campaigns). Cost-effectiveness in the future might be different because companies could learn how to deal with animal advocates, or it might be done in different countries (that are higher or lower), or making different welfare demands of corporations (which are more/less likely to succeed, and reduce a smaller/larger % of the suffering). | |||||||||
16 | • This is an estimate of the cost-effectiveness of all charities working on corporate campaigns from 2005-2018 (i.e. from when they began until when the analysis was conducted). Cost estimate includes the costs of undercover investigations intro the living conditions on farms, research and administrative expenses associated with this work. It only includes the direct short-term effects: Other effects, like the effect on chicken and egg consumption by potentially increasing prices or changing public opinion on farm animal issues are not included. | |||||||||
17 | • There is a lot of uncertainty in these sorts of estimates, and as a result you can see the confidence intervals are wide. To ensure that our modelling of this uncertainty is sound, the author of the underlying research used a Monte Carlo Analysis in the modelling tool Guestimate. | |||||||||
18 | • The underlying research comes from Rethink Priorities, and is available at the link | |||||||||
19 | ||||||||||
20 | Broiler (i.e. the 'better chicken commitment' for hens raised for meat) | Cage-free (i.e. laying hens) | Combined | |||||||
21 | Conservative (10th percentile) | Average | Optimistic (90th percentile) | Conservative (10th percentile) | Average | Optimistic (90th percentile) | Conservative (10th percentile) | Average | Optimistic (90th percentile) | |
22 | Poultry affected by commitments each year (in expectation) | 0.33B | 0.8B | 1.3B | 0.24B | 0.31B | 0.39B | 0.63B | 1.6B | 1.1B |
23 | Follow-through rate (predicted) | 1% | 24% | 94% | 48% | 64% | 84% | - | ||
24 | Mean years of impact (predicted) | 4 | 15 | 36 | 4 | 15 | 36 | - | ||
25 | Costs (millions) | $42 | $27 | $16 | $84 | $57 | $36 | $126 | $84 | $54 |
26 | Animals affected per dollar | 1.7 | 120 | 720 | 9 | 42 | 120 | 10 | 64 | 280 |
27 | Average lifespan | 43 days | 45.5 days | 48 days | 1.1 yrs | 1.3 yrs | 1.5 yrs | - | ||
28 | Poultry-years affected per dollar | 0.2 | 15 | 90 | 12 | 54 | 160 | 9.6 | 41 | 120 |
29 | Dollars to impact one animal, including costs of ballot initiatives, lobbying, charity evaluation and enforcement | $1.13 | - | - | $0.32 | - | - | $0.19 | ||
30 | ||||||||||