What is our assessment?

Based on our analysis, cultivated meat is promising in its ability to reduce emissions from meat production, but the impact on a large scale remains unclear. This potential climate solution is “Worth Watching.”

What is it?

Cultivated meat (also called lab-grown or cultured meat) is a cellular agriculture product that, when used to replace meat from livestock, can reduce emissions. Cultivated meat is developed through bioengineering. Its production uses sample cells from an animal, in addition to a medium that supports cell growth in a bioreactor. Energy is required to produce the ingredients for the growth medium and to run the bioreactor (e.g., for temperature control, the mixing processes, aeration).

Does it work? 

Since the development of cultivated meat is still in its infancy, there is limited evidence on its emissions savings potential from large-scale production. Preliminary estimates differ by an order of magnitude, depending on the energy source used in the lab environment. Using fossil energy sources, emissions generated from the production of one kilogram of cultivated meat could reach 25 kilograms CO₂‑eq. If renewable energy is used, emissions could be about two kilograms CO₂‑eq per kilogram of cultivated meat. By comparison, producing a kilogram of beef from livestock generates 80–100 kilograms CO₂‑eq, on average. Almost half of those emissions from livestock beef are in the form of methane. Producing pig meat and poultry meat generates about 12 kilograms and 10 kilograms of CO₂‑eq, respectively. Based on these estimates, cultivated meat could substantially reduce the emissions of beef. Compared to pork and chicken, however, its emissions depend on the source of energy used during production.

Why are we excited?

The cultivated meat industry is fairly new but growing rapidly. The first cell-cultivated meat product was developed in 2013. In 2024, there were 155 companies involved in the industry, located across six continents, mostly based in the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. Agriculture is responsible for about 22% of global GHG emissions, and raising livestock, especially beef, is particularly emissions-intensive. Therefore, cultivated meat has great potential to reduce related emissions as demand for meat continues to grow across the world. Cultivated meat enables the production of a large amount of meat from a single stem cell. This means that far fewer animals will be needed for meat production. Cultivated meat is also more efficient at converting feed into meat than chickens, which reduces emissions associated with feed production and demand for land. 

Why are we concerned?

Concerns about cultivated meat include scalability, cost, and consumer acceptance. Because cultivated meat is still an emerging area of food science, the cost of production may be prohibitive at a large scale. Although cell culture is routinely performed in industrial and academic labs, creating the culture medium for mass-market production at competitive prices will require innovations and significant cost reductions. There are still many unknowns about the commercial potential of cultivated meat and whether consumers will accept the products. In 2024, companies began to move from research labs to larger facilities to start producing meat for consumers. There are only two countries that allow the sale of cultivated meat: Singapore and the United States. Within the United States, about one-third of adults find the concept of cultivated meat appealing, and only about 17% would be likely to purchase it, according to a poll conducted on behalf of the Good Food Institute. However, even substituting a fraction of the beef consumed in the United States with cultivated meat could have an important impact on reducing emissions. Cultivated meat is a novel food and may require consumer education and producer transparency on production methods and safeguards in order to become more widely accepted.