Animal Suffering – an acceptable source of returns?
- At least 80 billion land animals and upwards of a trillion marine animals are killed by humans every year for food, clothing and ancillary purposes. Read more here…
- Animal testing accounts for the deaths of over 100 million animals in the US alone (USDA).
- Animal suffering is also caused in the name of human entertainment.
- Videos of factory farming portray violence too graphic to be displayed without content warnings by portals such as Youtube and Facebook.
Environmental impact – greenhouse gas emissions
This color-coded map (taken from the NASA chart of global temperatures) in Robinson projection displays a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies. Normal temperatures are shown in white. Higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower than normal temperatures are shown in blue. Normal temperatures are calculated over the 30 year baseline period 1951-1980. The final frame represents the 5 year global temperature anomalies from 2017-2021. Scale in degrees Fahrenheit.
Divestment – avoiding investment in industries that cause environmental damage
- Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution and habitat destruction.
- 2,500 gallons of water are needed to produce 1 pound of beef, and 1,000 gallons of water are required to produce 1 gallon of milk.
- A farm with 2,500 dairy cows produces the same amount of waste as a city of 411,000 people.
- For every 1 pound of fish caught, up to 5 pounds of unintended marine species are caught and discarded as by-kill.
- 80% of antibiotics sold in the US are for livestock.
- Ten thousand years ago, 99% of zoomass was wild animals. Today, humans and the animals that humans raise as food make up 98% of the zoomass.
- Citations for statistics available from http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts
Beyond Investing seeks to avoid all animal exploitation in its portfolios and will not invest in companies deemed to have a significant negative environmental impact
