Welfare Footprint Institute

Several members of the organization, including executive director Wladimir Alonso and scientific director Cynthia Schuck-Paim, are alumni of Origem Scientifica and the Universidade de Sao Paolo in Brazil. The group has previously received funding from the left-of-center Open Philanthropy. ^{2  3  4  5  6}

History and Activities

The Welfare Footprint Institute is an animal rights research institution that uses scientific data and other metrics to promote animal welfare through policy and economic systems. ¹

The Welfare Footprint Institute operates the “Welfare Footprint Framework (WFF),” a metric it claims can measure the pain and other feelings of animals in different environments and life stages. According to the Institute, animal welfare is based on quantifying how animals feel in different environments and is meant to encourage changing people’s mindsets.  ⁷

Several projects of the Welfare Footprint Institute include research initiatives on animal welfare in the poultry industry such as analyzing the transition to cage-free farming, the Pain Atlas Project to map human and animal pain using AI, and researching how to reduce the pain of animals in captivity. ¹

The Welfare Footprint Institute also produces publications on animal welfare including an analysis of animal welfare in egg production, a study on trout fishing, and an exploration of the alleged connection between neuroscience and philosophy. ¹

The Welfare Footprint Institute also promotes the adoption of slower-growth broiler chickens to reduce animal pain in chicken growth, improving environmental conditions for farm-raised salmon, and altering practices around raising farmed pigs such as improved housing. ^{8  9  10}

Additionally, the Welfare Footprint Institute hosts workshops for scientists, donors, veterinarians, and animal rights advocates. The workshops are meant to promote its Framework approach to animal welfare as well as training attendees in how to identify animal pain, incorporate WFF methodology into their work, and use artificial intelligence to asses animal welfare. ¹¹

Leadership

Wladimir Alonso is the executive director of the Welfare Footprint Institute, serving in the role since 2020. Previously, he was a technical officer with the World Health Organization (WHO), a research fellow at the Universidade de Sao Paulo, the director of Orgiem Scientifica, a researcher at Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health, and a scientific consultant for the University of Oxford.  ^{2  3}

Cynthia Schuck-Paim is the scientific director for the Welfare Footprint Institute. Previously she was the scientific director and co-founder of Origem Scientifica; a lecturer at the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Sao Paolo, Brazil; an associate researcher at the Universidade de Sao Paulo; and an instructor at the Publicase Comunicacao Cientifica. ^{2  4}

Funding

According to the Effective Altruism Forum, in 2022 the Welfare Footprint Project received $980,000 from Open Philanthropy, a left-of-center funding group founded by political donor Cari Tuna and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. The Welfare Footpring Institute also reportedly received funding from Open Philanthropy in 2018 and 2019. ^{5  6}