In October 2024, Colorado State University’s Center for Meat Safety and Quality hosted the second international summit, “Societal Role of Meat & Livestock”, at the CSU Spur campus in Denver.

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The Denver event brought together ~200 scientists, industry professionals, policymakers, and communicators from around the globe, with a format and delegation explicitly built upon the 2022 Dublin Summit’s foundation.

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The agenda covered updates in nutrition, food security, environmental science, livestock innovation (e.g. genetics, welfare, grazing strategies), and science communication.

The Summit included keynote lectures, panel discussions, interactive sessions, and field/livestock tours, emphasizing multidisciplinary and stakeholder engagement.

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In February 2025 a dedicated special issue of Animal Frontiers published papers derived from the Denver sessions.

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Outcomes of the Denver Summit

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At Denver, participants issued a Denver Call for Action, framed as a natural extension (and amplification) of the Dublin Declaration. The Call reiterates and expands on the key principles of the Dublin Declaration:

• Livestock systems must progress on the basis of the highest scientific standards. They are too precious to society to become the victim of simplification, reductionism or zealotry.

• Policymakers globally are urged to adopt plural, rigorous, transparent evidence-based decision-making rather than ideological prescriptions.

• The Call emphasizes “nourishment-oriented policies” that prioritise human health first, respecting the complexities and ecological roles of livestock systems.

• It warns against reductionist environmental narratives that portray livestock as uniformly harmful, and expresses concern about substitutive systems (e.g. ultra-processed faux meats, insect proteins, lab-grown products) lacking sufficient evidence for safety, scalability, or nutritional adequacy.

The Denver Call is co-signed by a large roster of prominent scientists from multiple countries, continuing the coalition-building aspect akin to Dublin.