But Does Veganism Really Have a Practical Impact?

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume IV, p. 59 of the PDF edition · English translation

In the world we live in, it is almost impossible to eliminate our contribution to animal exploitation entirely, since almost all products and services involve animal exploitation to some degree.

In addition, the techniques used to plant and harvest crops and to transport plant goods also kill small animals accidentally (and even intentionally, as in the extermination of animals that eat the crops).

These observations are an important reminder that we should try to do something to reduce the deaths that the production of plant foods also causes to animals. However, they are not a good reason to reject veganism, since the fact that we cannot avoid all harm does not justify our failing to avoid as much as we can.

The aim is to avoid harming as many animals as possible, even if we cannot avoid harming all of them. Even if veganism enabled us to prevent the death of just a single animal, it would still be worth it. Moreover, in reality, the practice of veganism prevents a large number of animals from being born only to suffer and be killed. We will see this in more detail below.

Some people have the impression that veganism has no practical impact because they notice that, despite the increase in the number of vegans in recent decades, there has also been an increase in the number of animals exploited. However, this does not show that veganism has no practical impact. What we need to do to assess the practical impact of veganism is not to compare the number of animals exploited today with the number exploited in past decades, but to imagine what the world would be like today if every person who is vegan were not. Remember that, if the number of vegans were smaller, the number of animals killed today would be even greater than it already is. Below we will look at some estimates of the practical impact of veganism.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that 2 trillion vertebrates are killed for consumption each year (the actual number is probably higher¹⁴⁸). Given that the human population is approximately 8 billion people, this amounts to an average of 250 vertebrate animals killed per person per year. Given the average human life expectancy (75 years), practicing veganism would mean that each person would prevent, over their lifetime, at least 18,000 vertebrates from being born to meet this fate.

The calculation above concerns only vertebrates. If we include invertebrates, we find that the number of animals killed in animal exploitation each year is far greater: between 34 and 54 trillion individuals¹⁴⁹. This amounts to an average of 4,250 to 6,750 animals killed per person per year. Given an average human life expectancy of 75 years, each vegan would prevent, over their lifetime, somewhere between 318,000 and 506,000 animals from being born to meet this fate.

Thus, veganism certainly has a practical impact. And, as we have seen, this impact is not small.