The global food system is a prime example of the confluence of public health, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability. Meat is a (perhaps the) symbol of contemporary, interrelated environmental and health crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, pandemics, unhealthy and unsustainable diets, and institutionalized animal suffering. it is increasingly turning into a public and political issue, as the social, ecological, and ethical costs of industrialized meat production are becoming more visible and prominent. Overwhelming scientific evidence indicates the need for sustainable food transformations and, concomitantly, a dietary transition away from animal-based foods. In consequence, the idea of a new – a transformative – meat governance with the aim of reducing overall meat production and consumption is gaining traction.

Nevertheless, meat remains the elephant in the room – or the sacred cow – especially when it comes to climate change and global public health strategies. Moreover, meat-reduction policies have not yet been instituted as integral part of the sustainable food transformation. While buzzwords such as the ‘decarbonisation’ of the economy and ‘fossil fuel divestment’ have become mainstream, comparable calls for a ‘deanimalisation’ of agriculture or for ‘defunding meat’ remain marginal. Considering livestock’s ‘long shadow’, it is time to drop the taboo: we need to talk about meat.

This project seeks to move the meat question from the margins into the spotlight of the ongoing debates on One Health, sustainability, climate change, food security, and public health. The objective is to launch a multi-disciplinary and multi-perspective scholarly debate about meat in the Anthropocene that also contributes to the public debates in society. It seeks to understand the impacts of meat production and consumption on humans, animals, and the environment, to scrutinize traditional regulatory approaches, and to envision the future shape and instruments of a transformative meat governance.