Bringing animal welfare into sustainability: embedding animal wellbeing in life cycle assessments

Abstract Purpose Animal welfare remains a critical yet insufficiently integrated dimension of sustainability in livestock production systems, with limited representation in frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and conventional Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Given the interdependencies between welfare, environmental performance, human health, socio-economic outcomes, system resilience and societal acceptance, this commentary outlines a structured pathway for embedding animal welfare within holistic sustainability assessment. Methodological Approach We identify key conceptual and methodological gaps in prevailing sustainability assessment approaches and argue for the explicit recognition of animals as stakeholders within Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). This reframing expands the normative and analytical boundaries of social sustainability assessment and addresses the current marginalization of animal interests in life cycle-based evaluations. To operationalize welfare within S-LCA, we propose the integration of measurable welfare indicators and introduce “animal life days” as a scalable activity variable quantifying the duration animals spend in defined welfare states. A hypothetical comparison of pig production systems illustrates how this metric captures cumulative welfare exposure and can be related to the functional unit to reflect production efficiency. Conclusions Embedding animals as stakeholders and incorporating time-based welfare metrics within S-LCA expands the analytical scope of sustainability assessment and enables welfare to be evaluated alongside environmental, economic and social impacts. This approach enhances ethical coherence, improves transparency in trade-off analysis, and provides a methodologically grounded foundation for more credible and integrative assessments of livestock production systems.