To determine where we should focus our analysis within this sector, we broadly considered ways in which philanthropic efforts might be targeted at reducing FAL emissions. We evaluated each strategy's scale, feasibility, and funding need in Table 1 . See Giving Green's Research Process for more information.
Due to capacity constraints, we did not evaluate a comprehensive list of strategies to reach net-zero food system emissions, which can be found in previous bodies of work.16 Instead, we focus on a shortlist of strategies where we think the marginal philanthropic dollar could be most impactful.
Table 1: Scale, feasibility, and funding need of strategies in the FAL sector
We chose strategies with no ‘low’ ratings as our priority strategies for reducing FAL emissions and expand on our reasoning in the following section . Based on the above evaluations, we think the most promising philanthropic sub-strategy is scaling alternative proteins. We also see strong potential to reduce enteric methane emissions, and may fund opportunities within this sub-strategy. We expand on our reasoning for prioritizing these strategies in the following section. Further information on our reasoning for deprioritizing the remaining strategies can be found on Giving Green’s research dashboard .
Priority #1: Scaling Alternative Proteins Scale 🟢🟢🟢 High
Feasibility 🟡🟡⚪ Medium
Funding need 🟢🟢🟢 High
Alternative proteins or “alt proteins” include plant-based products such as tofu and meat substitutes, products made from precision fermentation such as cultured egg proteins and mycoprotein, and cultivated (or “lab-grown”) meat .18 They can substitute for food or animal feed, or be blended with conventional protein to reduce the environmental footprint of meat products. Transitioning from animal products to alt proteins reduces emissions because alt proteins have a lower carbon footprint and use less land than animal products.
We prioritize novel proteins, including cultivated meat, fermentation-derived protein, and hybrid products in our strategy to scale alt proteins, because we think they could in theory be adopted by a wider consumer base than traditional plant-based proteins.19 Novel proteins differ from traditional plant-based proteins because they are made using advanced biomanufacturing, often with the express purpose of mimicking animal proteins. Our reasoning is that several decades of ongoing efforts to shift consumption toward plant-based protein do not seem to have led to substantial reductions in per capita meat consumption, suggesting that the alternatives available were not competitive enough to sustain a meaningful change.20
Scale: High. Studies that estimate the mitigation potential of lower-meat diets cluster around the range of 3 billion to 8 billion tCO2e per year.21 The wide range reflects differences in assumptions about land-use change emissions, the use of sequestered land, and the proportion of animal products substituted. We primarily rely on Kozicka et al. for our central estimate of mitigation potential, as it specifically examines the effects of conventional protein replacement with alt proteins. The study finds that a 50% replacement of pork, chicken, beef, and milk leads to 3 billion tCO2 e per year of avoided emissions in 2050 (mostly through reductions in enteric methane and land use change emissions).22 It also finds that a further 3.3 billion tCO2 e per year of emissions could be sequestered on 653 million hectares of freed-up land through activities like reforestation.23 We are uncertain about what level of sequestration is realistic, though displacing animal products meets our scale threshold even without additional sequestration.
Feasibility: Medium. In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of alternative protein policy wins, including increased funding for research, development, and demonstration (RD&D), commercialization support, inclusion in dietary guidelines, and recognition in national priorities.24 In 2020, Singapore became the first country to approve the sale of cultivated meat, and since then, a handful of other countries have also made regulatory progress.25 However, there has also been pushback to selling cultivated meat, via bans and strict labeling laws.26
We are cautiously optimistic about recent advancements in alt proteins, which have substantially improved their taste and price. On price, an influential techno-economic analysis commissioned in 2021 predicted cultivated meat could not be produced at under $21 USD per kilogram, but several companies now produce cultivated meat at $10 to $15 per kilogram.27 On taste, Nectar benchmarks alt protein products against their conventional counterparts. Its taste tests have also found that the best plant-based products are approaching taste parity with benchmark meat products, with plant-based chicken nuggets even being preferred to meat (Figure 2 ).28
Figure 2: The difference in average preference between leading plant-based meats and their meat benchmarks.[29]
We are also cautiously optimistic about the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to overcome some key technical bottlenecks in the development of alt proteins.30 AI has the potential to streamline experimental processes by predicting textural, flavor, and structural properties of alt proteins through molecular analysis, which could cut the time and costs for product development.31 The adjacent field of protein chemistry offers a precedent for AI-assisted research in AlphaFold , the Nobel-recognized AI system for predicting protein structure. Though an important caveat is that AlphaFold’s measured effects have so far been far larger on basic research than on applied development.32
We think further philanthropic support could lead to more favorable policies and public spending on alternative proteins in several key geographies, which would drive continued product improvements. However, we are unsure of the future consumer acceptance of alternative proteins and how much meat alternative proteins will realistically displace. While we currently think the main barriers to alternative meat acceptance are price and taste, it is still possible that even if those factors are overcome, cultural attitudes toward meat could present another major hurdle. We are also uncertain about the scalability of cultivated meat in particular due to relatively high production costs, mixed consumer acceptance, and regulatory and technical barriers to production at scale.33 We therefore support a strategy that involves scaling all types of alternative proteins.
Funding need: High. We think a funding gap exists for making alt proteins more taste- and price-competitive with meat. For the scale of emissions that could be influenced, alt proteins are highly neglected by climate philanthropy. We estimate that it is under 10% of the $510 million of annual climate-focused philanthropic foundation funding for food and agriculture, given that this spending is dominated by regenerative agriculture (estimated $300 million to $700 million per year).34 Tilt Collective has a similar estimate of $50 million per year for plant-rich food systems (which includes activities unrelated to alt proteins).35 At these levels, it would make up less than 1% of climate philanthropy from foundations.36
Similarly, alt proteins receive only modest funding from the private and public sectors, at $881 million per year and $450 million per year, respectively.37 Funding from the private sector is especially poor at the moment, considering it has declined by over 80% from 2021 to 2026.38 In contrast, Vivid Economics estimates that capturing the social benefit of alternative proteins reaching 50% of the market share in 2050 would justify global public spending of $10.1 billion in annual investment.39
Please see our strategy report on Scaling Alternative Proteins
Priority #2: Reducing Enteric Methane Emissions Scale 🟡🟡⚪ Medium
Feasibility 🟡🟡⚪ Medium
Funding need 🟡🟡⚪ Medium
Ruminants, like cattle and sheep, produce and release enteric methane as a byproduct of their digestion. Common interventions to reduce enteric methane per animal include changing diets through feed additives, using vaccines to modify animals’ gut microbiome, and breeding for low-methane animals.
Scale: Medium. Enteric methane emissions make up about 18% (2.8 billion tCO2e per year) of food system emissions.40 Reducing enteric methane has a lower mitigation potential than reducing livestock demand because, importantly, this strategy does not reduce its land use. Therefore, it can only address some of the ~10 billion tCO2 e per year of emissions attributed to animal agriculture, and does not contribute to freeing up land for sequestration.41 Still, current projections predict that meat demand will be substantial in the next few decades, and we think scaling alt proteins will take at least 10 years, so strategies to address these residual emissions are an important part of our wider food systems approach.42
According to the World Bank, the technical mitigation potential of currently available enteric methane interventions is around 1.2 billion tCO2 e per year (7.5% of food system emissions), though this drops to 600 million tCO2 e per year when including only cost-effective measures.43 We did not find a conclusive estimate for technologies still in the pipeline, and think more research is needed to understand their potential. Some estimates suggest mitigation could be substantial. For instance, the Global Methane Hub claims that breeding could result in methane emissions per animal decreasing by 1% each year.44
Feed additives, the most available technology to reduce enteric methane emissions, were found in a 2026 review to reduce feedlot emissions by ~30%.45 However, in pasture systems, which account for the majority of livestock emissions, the efficacy of feed additives can drop from 30% to just 5%.46 Delivery mechanisms for pasture-based systems are in development, with some evidence from small trials that similar mitigation levels to feedlots can be achieved.47 Other short-term interventions aim to improve feed digestibility and animal productivity and would be effective at mitigating ~860 million tCO2 e/year across feedlots and pastures, though just 25% of this mitigation could be achieved cost-effectively.48 Interventions that address pasture emissions in addition to feedlot emissions are at earlier stages of development.49 It could also be possible to stack multiple interventions and increase the total mitigation potential.
Feasibility: Medium. Several promising options to reduce enteric methane emissions exist, such as feed additives, vaccines, and breeding, but we are uncertain about their cost, efficacy, and acceptability to producers and consumers. Barriers to adoption include cost, inconsistent effects on productivity, regulatory barriers, lack of farmer buy-in, and consumer acceptance. Additionally, large-scale field validation of additive combinations remains lacking.50
Because the most available enteric methane solutions are limited to cattle living in feedlots, further development is needed to commercialize solutions for cattle living on pastures, such as vaccines and breeding.51 Adoption in pasture-based systems is more challenging because it is difficult to ensure and verify consistent feed delivery.
We think enteric methane interventions have become more politically tractable in recent years, though they are not yet a key priority for national governments.52 Notably, the Global Methane Pledge has elevated the salience of methane abatement. Regulation is progressing for enteric methane solutions, and the feed additive 3-NOP (Bovaer) is now authorized in many markets, including the EU, U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, and Brazil. Expanded delivery formats that target grazing herds are also beginning to appear.53
Funding need: Medium. Although substantial grant funding is available for research into enteric methane mitigation, some high-leverage areas—such as government advocacy, coordination, and coalition-building—could still absorb more philanthropic funding. The largest source of funding for enteric methane is the $200 million Enteric Methane Research & Development Accelerator , which is part of the Global Methane Hub .54 We estimate it spends ~$21 million per year in grant funding, while catalyzing an additional ~$40 million per year.55
We think government funding is an underrepresented source of RD&D spending. For example, in 2023, the U.S. government spent only 8% of agricultural climate mitigation funding from federal research and development (R&D) agencies on enteric methane, despite enteric methane contributing to 32% of agricultural emissions.56
We have found only a handful of nonprofits that focus heavily on enteric methane, though note substantial activity from academic and research institutions. We think non-research activities are comparatively underfunded and could be a powerful lever to amplify governmental and industry support for enteric methane mitigation. We also view grazing systems as comparatively neglected compared to feedlot interventions.57
Co-Benefits, Potential Risks, and Key Uncertainties Co-Benefits and Potential Risks Interventions to reduce enteric methane emissions have unclear effects on agricultural productivity.58 Decreases in productivity would be harmful, since all else equal, it would lead to a greater land footprint of livestock farming. It would also reduce the livelihoods of livestock farmers.
There is also a risk that focusing too much attention and resources on enteric methane mitigation may lead to greenwashing and slower mitigation of overall agricultural emissions. Some agribusinesses have promised reduced enteric methane emissions as a way to greenwash their livestock products.59 We think this messaging can obscure the impacts of livestock emissions and redirect focus away from efforts to reduce livestock demand, which we see as a more promising mitigation strategy due to its higher mitigation potential.60 We do not think enteric methane mitigation is currently diverting important resources away from the protein transition, but plan to continue monitoring this dynamic.
Key Uncertainties We are unsure if RD&D will reduce costs and increase the efficacy of enteric methane technology enough to lead to large-scale mitigation. We are especially uncertain about the mitigation potential for pasture cattle, given that pasture-based technologies have not been proven to reduce emissions substantially.
Given its lower mitigation potential and concerns that it could distract the food sector from the necessary protein transition, we consider enteric methane a secondary strategy to scaling alternative proteins, and intend for grants targeting reductions in enteric methane to make up a minority of FAL grants within the Giving Green Fund.
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16 For example, Table TS.5 IPCC, 2022 ; Exhibit 2 McKinsey & Company, 2020 ; Figure 5.1 World Bank, 2024
17 While “supporting reforestation, afforestation, and nature restoration” may be considered a land-use strategy, we consider it under Carbon Dioxide Removal rather than Food, Agriculture, and Land.
18 More information can be found at Defining alternative protein | GFI
19 Cultivated meat is grown directly from animal cells; Fermentation-derived proteins include 1) biomass fermentation, which grows microbial biomass, such as mycoprotein, for use in meat analogues, and 2) precision fermentation, which produces specific animal proteins like whey, casein and egg white; Hybrid products are made by combining different types of alt proteins together, or even with conventional meat.
20 Per capita meat consumption by type Our World in Data, 2023
21 Studies that make up the 3-8 GtCO2e/year range: 6.3 GtCO2e/year from Kozicka et al., 2023 ; 6.6 GtCO₂e/year from Poore & Nemecek, 2018 ; 8 GtCO2e/year from Tilt Collective, 2024 ; 8.1 GtCO2e/year from Clark et al., 2020 ; 3.4 GtCO2e/year from Li et al., 2024 ; 6.1 GtCO2e/year from World Bank, 2024
22 “"At 50%, carbon sequestration grows by 3.3 Gt CO2 year−1 in 2050 (1.5 Gt CO2 year−1 on average between 2020 and 2050) (Fig. 3f)—doubling the benefits already achieved through the reduction of land use emissions without such restoration. This gives 6.3 Gt CO2eq year−1 of all agriculture and land use emissions reduction compared to REF in 2050." Calculation: 6.3 - 3.3 = 3GtCO2e/year Kozicka et al., 2023
23 “In total, 653 Mha of land is released from use as a result.” Kozicka et al., 2023
24 Examples of alternative protein wins can be found in GFI, 2026 ; Some other examples include: “This is why government policy has been aimed at the shift towards a diet with more plant-based proteins and fewer animal-based proteins” Health Council Netherlands, 2023 ; “New dietary guidelines could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1bn tonnes by 2030, and could lessen country’s problems with obesity and diabetes” “The Chinese government has outlined a plan to reduce its citizens’ meat consumption by 50%” The Guardian, 2016
25 “Since Singapore’s green light for cultured meat in 2020, we’ve seen two more countries get the legal go-ahead (US and The Netherlands) and progress is underway in other areas of the world too, with the UK seeing its first cultivated meat application submitted for approval in 2023” Food Manufacture, 2024 ; “Meanwhile, there is positive progress in Australia and New Zealand too: the countries’ joint regulator greenlit Sydney-based Vow Food’s cultured quail as ‘safe to eat’ in December… It made Israel the third country – after Singapore and the US – to clear the sale of cultivated meat, advancing efforts to tackle food insecurity” Green Queen, 2024
26 “Alabama became the second U.S. state to ban lab-grown meat, joining Florida which earlier this month outlawed the alternative protein… Officials in other states including Kentucky, Arizona, West Virginia and Tennessee have similar measures cooking” USA Today, 2024
27 “Several cultured meat companies are now producing cell mass at $10 to $15 per kilogram—already 30 to 50 percent below the TEA’s projected minimum of $21 per kilogram. A handful of leading-edge firms have gone further, achieving costs below $10 per kilogram” The Protein Report, 2025
28 Figure: Leader products have emerged in most categories with taste parity on the horizon Nectar, 2025
29 Slide 23 Nectar, 2024
30 “AI could provide a large relative uplift for cultivated meat, but actual adoption is far below the ceiling, constrained by data scarcity, company secrecy, funding shortfalls, and a small workforce.” Rethink Priorities, 2026
31 “Optimizing the sensory perception of food is traditionally a costly, time-consuming process involving expert tasting panels and instrumental analysis, including mass spectrometry and gas chromatography. In contrast, an AI-powered pipeline has the potential to predict sensory perceptions from only the chemical or molecular make-up of food, eliminating the need for costly human panels and reducing the time to iterate product formulations.” Datta et al., 2026
32 “we find that basic research on proteins that had no structural information prior to AlphaFold increases by 23 to 32% relative to proteins that already had a structure, with the effects increasing dramatically over time. This represents a significant shift in the direction of research toward less-studied proteins. By contrast, the response of applied R&D, as measured by patents referencing those proteins, has been far more muted” Hill & Stein, 2026
33 “Scaling up the bioprocess is challenging due to potential issues of low growth rate, metabolic inefficiency, catabolite inhibition, and high shear stress for cell damage, limiting bioreactor volume and attainable cell density.” Chen et al., 2022 ; “Results suggest that the cell-cultured meat industry has a long way to go before it can operate and make an acceptable return on investment.” Garrison, Biermacher, and Brorsen, 2022 ; “This review demonstrates that acceptance of the alternative proteins included here is relatively low (compared to that of meat); acceptance of insects is lowest, followed by acceptance of cultured meat.” Onwezen et al., 2021
34 Figure 4. Known foundation funding to sectors, 2024, USD Millions Climateworks, 2026 ; “Philanthropy recognizes the urgency to shift financial flows and is also invested in this transition, contributing an estimated USD 300 to 700 million annually.” Global Alliance for the Future of Food, 2024
35 Figure: Current & future funding potential to advance a plant-rich food system Tilt Collective, 2024
36 Figure 3: Foundation for climate change mitigation, 2020 to 2024, USD millions Climateworks, 2026
37 "funding for the alternative protein sector fell by 20% in 2025, attracting just $881M. It was the first time this figure fell below the $1B mark since 2018." Green Queen, 2026 ; Calculation: (2.5-0.7)/4 = $0.45 billion/year "GFI’s 2021 report’s cumulative total of approximately $700 million in government investments has become at least $2.5 billion as of 2025, and the 16 countries that had begun working to advance alternative proteins now number at least 33." GFI, 2026
38 Calculation: (5100-881)/5100M = 583% reduction "alternative protein investments almost tripled to $3.2 billion in 2020 before surging to a record $5.1 billion in 2021—a time of broad investor exuberance, with record-breaking venture funding across most sectors." GFI, 2023
39 "To unlock the full benefits of alternative proteins, global public spending on RD&D and on commercialization needs to increase to at least US$4.4 billion and US$5.7 billion per year, respectively” Climateworks, 2021 Note: This is an estimate of socially optimal public investment given the positive externalities private investors do not capture, not a costing of what is required to reach any particular market share.
40 Figure O.2 World Bank, 2024
41 Table 1 Xu et al., 2021
42 “All WHO regions show a marked increase in demand for animal-sourced protein across the BAU
and SS projections in each of the years documented.” Henchion et al., 2021
43 Calculations: 380+680+179 = 1239 MtCO2 per year; 98 + 380 + 120 = 598 MtCO2e/year. from Table 3.1 (Enteric fermentation: feed additives + Enteric fermentation: improved feed digestibility + Enteric fermentation: productivity enhancement) World Bank, 2024
44 “Reductions of at least 1% per year in emissions per animal are available through balanced selection.” Global Methane Hub, 2024
45 "Feed additives have emerged as promising strategies to lower enteric methane (CH₄) emissions, with some achieving reductions of up to 30%." Ramos-Morales, 2026
46 “When CH4 production was considered across the entire 24-h period, the cows offered 3-NOP produced ∼5% less CH4 than the control (P < 0.050).” Costigan et al., 2024 ; “Most of the research to date has focused on mitigation of CH4 from ruminants in confinement systems, but technologies to reduce emissions from grazing animals would have the largest effect on reducing emissions from global ruminant livestock.” Beauchemin et al., 2022 ; “So my projection is about over 80% of the emissions are from animals on pasture.” Charles Brooke, Catalyst podcast, 2024
47 “This study suggests that the addition of pelleted bromoform-containing seaweed (Asparagopsis taxiformis) to the diet of grazing beef cattle can potentially reduce enteric methane (CH4) emissions (g/d) by an average of 37.7% without adversely impacting animal performance.” Meo-Filho, Ramirez-Agudelo & Kebreab et al., 2024
48 Calculation: (98 + 120)/(179 + 680) = 25.4%; Table 3.1 World Bank, 2024
49 Figure 3 Global Methane Hub, 2024
50 "However, their widespread adoption is limited by inconsistent effects on productivity, regulatory barriers, and economic constraints."; "While in vitro studies often show promising results, validation of combinations of feed additives in large-scale production systems is lacking." Ramos-Morales, 2026 ; “Fewer than ~30% of producers surveyed indicated that they would be willing to bear the cost of an enteric solution” EDF, 2022 ; “An aggressive approach to pronounced inhibition of enteric CH4 emissions is technically possible through the use of chemical compounds and/or bromoform-containing algae, but aspects such as safety, availability, government approval, consumer acceptance, and impacts on productivity and economic returns must be satisfactorily addressed.” Ungerfeld, Beauchemin, and Munoz, 2022
51 “The delivery of even some of the most potent antimethanogenic additives to pasture-based livestock will be a challenge for the sector.” Smith et al., 2022
52 “Strategies to mitigate emissions from enteric fermentation (animal and feed management, diet formulation, and rumen manipulation) are not yet widely used, and the barriers to their wide-scale adoption are not well understood. As a result, emissions from enteric fermentation are rarely targeted by any policies despite constituting the major source of methane emissions in agriculture.” Olczak, 2023
53 “Bovaer, a brand name for the additive 3-Nitrooxypropanol or 3-NOP, has undergone rigorous safety assessments as part of the FSA’s market authorisation process, and is approved for use in Great Britain. It has also been approved for use in other countries including in the EU, Australia, Canada and the US.” UK Food Standards Agency quoted in TSLN, 2024
54 "Enteric Fermentation Research & Development Accelerator, a $200M Agricultural Methane Mitigation Funding Initiative" Global Methane Hub, 2023
55 The Enteric Methane Accelerator was founded in December 2023 and its latest annual report was for 2025. We therefore assume it has reported grants for 2024 and 2025 and that funding levels are equally distributed over time. “$42 MILLION GRANTED from the Accelerator pooled fund (since 2023)”; “$80 MILLION in leveraged funding through aligned funders” Global Methane Hub, 2026
56 “Though funding has substantially risen for projects addressing enteric fermentation (a digestive process in cattle and similar animals), in 2023 it still received less than 8% of the categorized mitigation funding, despite contributing 32% of agricultural Emissions.” The Breakthrough Institute, 2024
57 "Most research has been conducted with confined animals, and considerably more research is needed to develop, adapt, and evaluate antimethanogenic strategies for grazing systems. In general, few options are currently available for extensive production systems without feed supplementation.“ Beauchemin et al., 2022
58 “Several meta-analyses have confirmed their potential to significantly lower CH₄ emissions, but their widespread adoption remains constrained by efficacy variability across diets and production systems, potential trade-offs with animal productivity” Ramos-Morales, 2026
59 “Our research shows how the industry seeks to portray itself as a climate leader by: Downplaying the impact of livestock farming on the climate; Casting doubt on the efficacy of alternatives to meat to combat climate change; Promoting the health benefits of meat while overlooking the industry’s environmental footprint; Exaggerating the potential of agricultural innovations to reduce the livestock industry’s ecological impact.” Desmog, 2021
60 “Other greens expressed deep frustration over their fellow environmentalists’ indifference to the meat industry’s environmental destruction, or worse, some organization’s willingness to partner with companies on greenwashing projects.” “The industry’s claim that it can achieve carbon neutrality was bolstered by a 2021 WWF white paper, which outlines how some large US dairy farms could reach net zero emissions — or even be carbon-negative — not by 2050, but astonishingly, within just five years. The organization says it could be achieved by farms using a mix of regenerative practices and new technologies, like changing cows’ genetics and feed so they burp out less methane” Vox, 2024
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