Episode Details

Summary

In January 2026, the animal charity Farmkind launched a controversial news campaign advertising their ability to “offset” the impact of non-vegan diets through strategic donations to EA causes. I have now spoken with several non-vegan EAs who use Farmkind (or similar calculators) to buy “offsets” for their diets, and I think the offsetting logic is more powerful than vegans would like to admit. However, I think EAs generally draw the wrong conclusions from this line of reasoning. Even (maybe especially) under hardcore consequentialism I believe there's a very strong case to be made against using “offsets” of any kind. As a vegan advocate now working in animal welfare policy, I feel strongly that the reluctance of many EAs to commit to veganism represents a major missed opportunity for the movement, and an objectively massive source of animal suffering.

How Offsets Work

By going vegan, you can reduce total market demand by something like ~200 animals (excluding shrimp) every year (1). However, due both to the astonishing number of animals killed for food every year and the immense tractability of targeted welfare reforms, going vegan is far from the most effective way to help animals. Farmkind estimates that donating [...]

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First published:
April 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oW9JhtuD8hWN6xd7u/the-case-against-offsetting-your-diet

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.