Cultivating Impact
From: Zoë Sigle, Farmed Animal Funders
To: Interested donors, animal allies, and climate champions
Re: From Cages to Change: How 2025 Could Redefine Our Food Systems
Date: December 9, 2024
AI's depiction of a humane, sustainable food system in 2025—can you spot the oddities? ;)
2025 holds immense promise—and urgency—for the future of our food systems and the lives of billions of farmed animals. Animal agriculture contributes just 17% of global calories, but takes a disproportionate toll on the environment, climate, public health, human rights, and animals themselves, making reform a critical priority¹. Amidst the outsized problem, specifically in 2025, non-profits will be doubling down on immediate key leverage points to tackle factory farming’s harms. In this piece, I highlight two specific 2025 leverage points, amidst many, and encourage interested philanthropic readers to reach out to learn more.
2025: The Corporate Cage-free Revolution
The fight against cruel factory farming practices has seen unprecedented victories in the corporate sphere. A standout success? Convincing food industry giants to eliminate battery cages for hens—inhumane wire cages so cramped that birds cannot spread their wings. Over the past decade, animal advocates have convinced hundreds of US companies and thousands of companies globally to end the use of cages in their egg supply chains.
Now, the clock is ticking: 2025 is the year that over 1,000 corporate cage-free commitments are due for fulfillment.
Companies have fulfilled their cage-free commitments at promising rates to date. The Open Wing Alliance, a coalition of 90+ animal protection NGOs seeking to ban cages, reports that 89% of cage-free commitments with deadlines through 2023 have been honored. Even McDonald’s fulfilled its US cage-free commitment a year ahead of schedule.
Thanks to the implementation of these corporate commitments, as well as ten states now legislating against cages, 40% of the US laying hen flock is now cage-free. This means that today, compared with a decade ago, 95 million fewer hens are subjected to cruel battery cages.
However, the challenge remains immense, particularly in regions like Latin America and Asia, where corporate cage-free egg fulfillment lags. Some food companies with global cage-free commitments are fulfilling commitments in the Global North while making little to no progress in the Global South, even though consumers in the Global South also do not want hens to suffer in egg production. Applying corporate social responsibility policies in the Global North, but not the Global South, creates cross-border inequities for consumers and animals and does nothing to prevent the export of used cages from the Global North to the Global South. Some argue that used cage imports into Global South countries set up unsustainable economic futures for local farmers amidst clear legislative and corporate trends toward cage bans.
With over 1,000 corporate deadlines converging in 2025, it’s time to accelerate global efforts. The groundwork is laid, but additional funding is crucial to scale up campaigns, provide technical resources for cage-free transitions, and ensure commitments free as many hens as possible from cages globally.
2025: Public Policy Leverage for Sustainable Food System Shifts
Moving away from factory farming to a more sustainable, healthier, and humane food system requires society to consume fewer animal-based foods and more plant-based foods. Leading organizations like the International Panel for Climate Change, United Nations, EAT-Lancet Commission, World Bank, European Commission, US National Climate Assessment, and World Health Organization agree that this shift is essential to reduce environmental damage, improve public health, and prevent the suffering of farmed animals.
This transformation is challenging but possible with coordinated efforts. Key strategies include:
Developing and scaling plant-based and alternative proteins (like cultivated and fermented proteins).
Using government policies to support plant-based food supply and encourage consumption changes.
Partnering with major food companies and retailers to make plant-based foods more available and affordable.
For example, some supermarkets in the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK are committing to sell more plant-based products. Dutch retailers aim for a 50/50 ratio of plant-based to animal-based protein sales by 2025. These commitments make it easier for people to choose sustainable, plant-based options.
To focus on a key leverage point in 2025, Denmark will lead the EU Council Presidency (July–December 2025), creating a unique chance to push for plant-based policies across Europe. Denmark is already ahead of the curve, having launched a national Action Plan for Plant-Based Foods and set up a national fund to invest over €170 million in initiatives like plant-based product development and chef training.
Denmark has formally agreed to advocate for a Europe-wide Plant-Based Action Plan, and the EU Commission has recommended developing such a plan by 2026. But turning this idea into reality requires strong advocacy, strategic collaboration, and sufficient funding. With Denmark’s leadership and support from NGOs, 2025 could be a turning point for Europe to embrace plant-based food systems, benefiting people, animals, and the planet.
How Philanthropists Can Help
The movement to reform and replace factory farming has achieved outsized impacts on a scrappy global budget—comparable to the annual revenue of the NYC Metropolitan Opera. With greater resources, this high-leverage movement could scale its successes exponentially.
Corporate cage-free deadlines and Denmark’s EU Council presidency are just two 2025 milestones. Many additional opportunities span geographies, species, and strategies, each with the potential to reduce animal suffering and transform the food system.
Philanthropists have a unique chance to catalyze change in 2025 by supporting high-impact organizations driving these efforts.
For funders motivated by animal welfare: Recommendations (non-exhaustive) for organizations driving 2025 corporate accountability work forward include:
The Humane League², which distributes funds to Open Wing Alliance member organizations globally
and many more, with diverse strategies, geographies, and corporate targets.
For funders motivated by climate, health, and animal welfare: Recommendations (non-exhaustive) for organizations and funds driving forward plant-based and alternative protein transitions and policies include:
and many more, with diverse strategies, geographies, and institutional targets.
Recommendations for animal welfare funds supporting a wide range of interventions (including many not mentioned here) include:
Farmed Animal Funders provides pro bono bespoke philanthropic advising to qualified philanthropists and philanthropic advisors, whether at the early stages of learning about the cause area or ready to deploy funds and track impact. To learn more and receive customized giving recommendations for major gifts, please register for advising.
Notes
¹As a few examples of animal agriculture’s outsized negative impacts:
Climate Change: Animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, rivaling emissions from the entire transportation sector.
Environmental Devastation: It’s the leading cause of deforestation and biodiversity loss, wiping out ecosystems from the Amazon to Southeast Asian mangroves.
Human Health Risks: Factory farming fuels antibiotic resistance, spreads zoonotic diseases, contributes to chronic illnesses, and endangers communities via air pollution.
Worker Exploitation: Many laborers in this industry endure hazardous conditions, and some experience forced labor.
² Disclosures: I was employed by The Humane League from 2016—2020 and Mercy For Animals from 2020—February 2024. I currently lead the advisory committee for the Plant-Based EU Policy Fund and serve as a Fund Manager at the EA Animal Welfare Fund.
Cultivating Impact spotlights solutions to reform and replace factory farming. It aims to connect philanthropic readers with high-impact funding opportunities, where each dollar goes tremendously far to reduce animal suffering and co-benefit the climate, environment, and people.
Cultivating Impact is produced by Zoë Sigle, the Director of Programs and Philanthropic Advisor for Farmed Animal Funders, a community of 45+ foundations and individuals donating $250,000+ annually to reform and replace factory farming. Additionally, Zoë serves as a Fund Manager with the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund. With a decade of experience spanning corporate engagement, grantmaking, advocacy, and grassroots organizing, Zoë combines rigorous research with deep movement knowledge to craft effective philanthropic strategies. To learn more about this cause area or for bespoke philanthropic advising, contact Zoë.