Life Cycle Assessment of UK Insect Protein Production Processes for Pig and Poul

Background and Policy Context In order to achieve net zero, we must reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions whilst supporting farm productivity and resilience. In the context of climate change, changes may be required to improve the resilience of the food chain, including through identifying sustainable, nutritionally balanced animal feeds. Insects, being extremely feed efficient, are one potential alternative protein source that could be used to boost animal feed protein security in a sustainable way. Insects are also able to cope with a variety of substrates, effectively valorising waste into usable protein for animal feeds. However, where products that could be fed directly to livestock are used, insect meal may be a less sustainable option. Opportunities appear greatest where insects are playing a role in upcycling and concentrating nutrients.

The EU have recently permitted the use of insect proteins to be used within poultry and pig feed. These changes occurred after the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU), and so do not apply to Great Britain (GB; Northern Ireland exempt through the Northern Ireland Protocol), but have resulted in pressure from stakeholders to align GB feed regulations with the EU's. One of the arguments for using insect protein is its potential sustainability benefits, e.g. lower carbon, land use and biodiversity impacts than proteins from unsustainably-sourced soybean meal or fishmeal and waste valorisation potential. These credentials have not been robustly demonstrated in a UK context and a lack of publicly available life cycle analysis data has previously been identified for the UK industry (WWF, 2021; Insect Biomass Task and Finish Group, 2019). Therefore, a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the insect bioconversion industry is required to understand the environmental impacts, and conditions for optimal sustainability outcomes, of using insect protein in livestock feeds prior to any consideration of regulatory changes.

Previous LCAs have been undertaken for systems outside of the UK and individual UK companies may have undertaken LCAs which are not freely available, however comparisons among existing LCAs is difficult due to their differing goals and scopes (Smetana et al., 2021). To fully understand the potential of utilising insect processed protein in poultry and pig sectors LCAs should be produced which can be compared to the production of conventional animal feed proteins such as soybean meal and fishmeal.