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A peer-reviewed 2025 life-cycle assessment found that modeled near-term cultivated-meat production could have climate impacts ranging from about 80% below to about 2,513% above the median retail-beef comparator. The wide range reflects different production scenarios, especially assumptions about growth-medium ingredients and their processing. It does not show that every cultivated-meat product or future facility has a higher footprint than beef.
What the study found
Derrick Risner and colleagues assessed the climate impact of near-term animal-cell-based meat (ACBM), another term for cultivated meat. Their cradle-to-gate life-cycle assessment (LCA) models impacts from relevant upstream inputs through production, rather than measuring emissions at a set of operating commercial factories.
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Across their scenarios, the modeled global-warming impact ranged from about 80% below to about 2,513% above the study’s median retail-beef comparator. The authors also report that every cultivated-meat scenario exceeded the study’s cited minimum retail-beef impact of 9.6 kg CO₂e per kg. These are scenario results, not measured emissions from a mature commercial industry.
| Reported result | What it means |
|---|---|
| About 80% below to about 2,513% above median retail beef | Range of modeled global-warming impacts across the cultivated-meat scenarios in Risner et al. |
| 9.6 kg CO₂e per kg | Minimum retail-beef impact cited as a comparator in the study; every modeled cultivated-meat scenario exceeded it. |
Why growth medium changes the result
Cultivated meat cells grow in a medium containing ingredients that support their growth. Producing and processing those ingredients contributes to the modeled footprint. Risner and colleagues warn that near-term production has the potential to have substantially higher impacts than beef if it uses a highly refined growth medium. That is a conditional finding: it does not establish that every producer uses highly refined inputs, or that the study measured every manufacturer’s recipe.
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The authors call for a sustainable growth medium optimized for high-density cell proliferation. In practical terms, the climate outcome depends not only on the meat-production process, but also on what goes into the medium and how those inputs are made.
How this compares with a 2030 projection
A separate peer-reviewed CE Delft ex-ante LCA considers a projected commercial-scale system in 2030, rather than Risner and colleagues’ near-term production scenarios. Its results vary with the energy assumptions and the foods used for comparison:
| CE Delft scenario | Projected comparison |
|---|---|
| Renewable energy in production and key supply-chain stages | Lower carbon footprint than ambitious beef and pork benchmarks, and comparable to chicken. |
| Global-average energy mixes | Lower footprint than beef, but higher than pork and chicken. |
CE Delft identifies reactor temperature control and culture-medium ingredient production as climate hotspots. Its authors also caution that cultivated meat is an immature technology, making scale-up and process performance uncertain. These projections and the UC Davis scenarios are not factory-to-factory measurements: they differ in production horizon, assumptions, energy sourcing, assessment boundaries, and comparison benchmarks. A result from one assessment therefore cannot settle the footprint of every product or production pathway.
What the study does—and does not—establish
- It does establish: under the assumptions modeled by Risner and colleagues, near-term cultivated-meat scenarios span a very wide range of climate impacts, and all exceed the minimum retail-beef comparator they cite.
- It points to: growth-medium composition and processing as consequential factors, alongside the energy and upstream inputs included in an assessment.
- It does not establish: that all cultivated meat has a higher climate footprint than beef, or that the scenarios represent actual emissions at mature commercial facilities.
- It does not make studies interchangeable: conclusions depend on the assessment boundary, production assumptions, energy mix, and comparator.
Publication status and timing
The paper appeared online on December 30, 2024, and in the January 17, 2025 issue of ACS Food Science & Technology. UC Davis covered an earlier preprint in 2023, when it had not yet been peer reviewed; that earlier description reflects the preprint’s status at the time, not the published paper’s current status.
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