UK Government-commissioned Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) challenges the sustainability of insect feed

Last week, the environmental consulting company Ricardo published a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the potential environmental impacts of different animal feedstocks, including insect feed. The independent, scientifically robust LCA was commissioned by the UK government’s Department of Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) to compare the environmental impact of farming black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) raised on poultry manure, food waste, or traditional feedstock, with soy and fish meal production. The report modelled the impacts of those 5 production systems in the UK across 16 environmental criteria including climate change, acidification, ecotoxicity, energy use, land use and water use, from cradle-to-gate.

Ricardo’s assessment leaves little room for doubt: despite the hype around insect feed as an “sustainable” protein, none of the insect-based feeds assessed outperformed soy meal or fish meal across all of the 16 categories. On the contrary, insect feed underperforms in several key environmental impact categories, including climate change and energy use. For example, the report estimates that insect protein could be up to 13.5 times worse for the climate than soybean meal, and up to 4.2 times worse for the climate than fish meal.

Ricardo chart comparing CO2 emissions across the 5 production systems

The study concludes that traditional feed-fed insect feed, which is most similar to the insect feed produced by the major insect farming companies in practice, has the highest environmental impacts for 13 out of 16 main impact categories.

Ricardo’s assessment of insect-based feed versus other feeds used by UK livestock producers comports with recent research that the Insect Institute has helped coordinate, which identifies a number of barriers to insect feed outperforming traditional animal feed on sustainability or price competitiveness. While Ricardo’s study found that insect feed could offer greater sustainability and circularity potential if produced under the right conditions, it acknowledges that in many cases these conditions may not be realistic. It also cautions that there is a need for further research to be conducted into the use of frass as a fertilizer, and its impact on the wider environment.
With this assessment now complete, the UK government should proceed with caution as it considers allowing processed insect protein as livestock feed - especially because it referenced insect feed’s potential environmental benefits as its primary rationale for proposing the change. We look forward to seeing the government’s response to public comments on its proposal, and its incorporation of the conclusions of the Ricardo LCA.