Victoria Erickson (a VRG volunteer), who is finishing her degree in biological science at Chapman University, looked at several articles concerning the Environmental impact of cultured meat and wrote the following.

Environmental Impacts of Cultured Meat Production

Tuomisto, H. L., & de Mattos, M. J. T. (2011). Environmental impacts of cultured meat production. Environmental Science & Technology, 45(14), 6117–6123. https://doi.org/10.1021/es200130u

https://pubmed-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.libproxy.chapman.edu/21682287/

Summary:

This paper compared the environmental impact of mass cultured meat production to the environmental impact of typical meat production from livestock. This study concluded that “in comparison to conventionally produced European meat, cultured meat involves approximately 7-45% lower energy use (only poultry has lower energy use), 78-96% lower GHG emissions, 99% lower land use, and 82-96% lower water use depending on the product compared.” Overall cultured meat shows great promise for feeding the growing population and reducing the environmental stress that current meat production imposes.

My response:

Overall, this does seem like a reliable source with no biased agenda. My main critique to this paper is that there were several variables of energy expenditure and resources that were excluded from the study. The variables I noticed they excluded included bacterial culturing of E. coli for hormone and vitamin production, resources required to obtain and harvest the STEM cells, and the indirect land used for land use change. Although I do not think that the exclusion of these variables would have had a severe enough impact to the data to change the overall conclusion of the paper, I do feel that their data may be slightly skewed in the direction favoring how “environmentally friendly” cultured meat may appear. I am making this critique based on my knowledge of bacteria culturing which requires growth broth and antibiotics which could accumulate to a substantial number of resources. Furthermore, their exclusion of the resources required to obtain the STEM cells concerns me because to obtain the cells you would first need to grow actual livestock and then slaughter them or at least perform a biopsy to harvest the STEM cells. Growing the livestock would still require water, feed, and land even though you would be growing substantially less livestock than would be required for typical (non-cultured) meat production due to the STEM cell’s ability to endlessly proliferate. Overall, I still trust their overarching conclusion that cultured meat requires fewer resources and may have a less severe negative impact on the environment. However, I feel that cultured meat may consume a bit more resources than what is concluded here.

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Anticipatory Life Cycle Analysis of In Vitro Biomass Cultivation for Cultured Meat Production in the United States

Mattick, C. S., Landis, A. E., Allenby, B. R., & Genovese, N. J. (2015). Anticipatory Life Cycle Analysis of In Vitro Biomass Cultivation for Cultured Meat Production in the United States. Environmental science & technology, 49(19), 11941–11949.

https://doi-org.libproxy.chapman.edu/10.1021/acs.est.5b01614

https://pubmed-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.libproxy.chapman.edu/26383898/

Summary:

This paper makes the conclusion that cultured meat utilizes fewer agricultural inputs and land than typical meat production using livestock. However, they identify that this is accompanied by a tradeoff of higher energy requirements as a result of industrialization of the process that was once naturally occurring inside an organism. The industrial energy needed to culture meat comes from running the general facility energy and maintaining the various functions performed by the bioreactor. Note that this study excluded the energy embodied in capital equipment and buildings because they claim that this energy expenditure is negligible.

My response:

Overall, I do trust the results of this study claiming that cultured meat has less of an environmental impact than typical livestock meat production but will require more industrial energy input. Something to keep in mind with these results is that it is all based on models and predictions. When everything is said and done and cultured meat is commercially produced, these numbers may not hold up due to the nature of the cell culture being unique to what has been done in the past. For example, what if the STEM cells require more energy input than expected because they are being cultured to form myotubules, and eventually muscle tissue, as opposed to producing a biomolecule or virus like most tissue culture experiments do? What if the STEM cells release more heat from their heightened metabolic rates and therefore require the bioreactor to utilize more energy input to regulate the temperature and keep it within optimal range for cell culture? These are of course hypothetical examples, but this is what comes to mind for me when considering the variables that could differ from the models.

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Cultured Meat: Promises and Challenges

Treich N. (2021). Cultured Meat: Promises and Challenges. Environmental & resource economics, 79(1), 33–61. https://doi-org.libproxy.chapman.edu/10.1007/s10640-021-00551-3

https://pubmed-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.libproxy.chapman.edu/33758465/

This paper is a review that discusses many aspects of cultured meat commercial production. In regard to the environmental impact they list many arguments both for and against cultured meat. I will not summarize their points as each of the papers cited in this paper can be read as primary literature. However, I still wanted to provide you with this link because this seems like an extensive review of the environmental impact of cultured meat. They also touch on other interesting components of commercial production of cultured meat such as economics.

 Another student reviewer said:

Overall, I agree with Victoria’s responses on the first two articles listed. She mentioned about several variables not being considered in both articles and I have the same opinions. Even though I’m not familiar enough with cultured meat processing, extra steps might be needed, especially in the early stages of scaling-up and they definitely would require extra resources apart from possible concerns with STEM cell culturing she mentioned. I agree with the argument in both articles that cultured meat could utilize fewer agricultural inputs and generate less environmental impact. That being said, I would be more conservative on numbers and percentage regarding the environment impact between cultured meat and conventional agriculture as at the moment we’re still in the early stages and more data is needed to validate (or disprove) these models.