Recently, it has seemingly become an irrefutable truth: The production and consumption of animals for meat is unsustainable: Land is being eroded and destroyed, water resources overdrawn, greenhouse gases over-emitted, and energy and grains unnecessarily diverted – all to satiate a growing, unhealthy and inequitable global pattern of meat overconsumption.

But is all meat unsustainable? On the one hand, meat consumption is aligned with unsustainable and environmentally destructive practices which are harmful to the animals upon which the sector is structured. On the other hand, animals at the centre of agro-ecological, Indigenous and pastoralist production systems can arguably be part of a regenerative and sustainable agri-food system. In this Congress ‘Featured Talk’ we will hear from the authors of a new book - Green Meat - debate the question of whether (and under what circumstances) meat consumption is sustainable, and what role farm animals might (or might not) play in the future of sustainable ways of living.