About AVEA
AVEA: a voice for all animals
The Australian Veterinary Environmental Alliance (AVEA) turns veterinary expertise into practical action for animals and the environment. We exist because the animals we love and need can’t act on the threats they face — but the people and industries that rely on them can.
The veterinary profession is where science becomes care. Vets, vet nurses and animal-health specialists touch every Australian — through the pets we live with, the food we eat, the wildlife the world comes to see, and the biosecurity that keeps the country safe. Vets and their coworkers take scientific knowledge and apply it with care in clinics, on farms, in the field and in policy, protecting the animals, industries and environments Australia depends on.
AVEA brings the people doing that work together with the industries and Australians who depend on them — to act on the environmental pressures affecting the animals we share this country with.
What we do
We inform, connect and empower the veterinary profession, developing practical programs with real teams who are actually doing the work every day. Our key programs are:
- Climate Care Program: Australia’s only veterinary-specific sustainability certification. A self-paced online program supporting clinics to reduce their environmental impact and operating costs, attract and retain staff and clients who care about this work, and lead their teams as Climate Champions. Developed by vets, vet nurses and their teams, for veterinary practice.
- Sustainable Equine Futures: Currently being developed with and for Australia’s equine community — vets, breeders, stables and owners — to reduce the environmental footprint of equine management and care.
- ZerOctober: The veterinary profession’s month of sustainable action. Each October, clinics across Australia commit to one or more sustainability initiatives — from energy audits to waste reduction and beyond.
- Education: Education for the industry and the public, including a regular series of free online masterclasses led by veterinary specialists, researchers, key industry figures and others on the practical challenges facing the profession — from the carbon cost of inhalational anaesthesia to the science of heat stress. Open to vets, vet nurses and anyone working with animals in Australia.
- Policy, Advocacy and Community Engagement: AVEA represents the veterinary perspective in government submissions, parliamentary briefings and media coverage on climate, biodiversity and animal welfare.
- Rural and Regional Program (in development): Bringing the AVEA conversation to the parts of Australia where animals, land and livelihoods are most directly exposed to environmental pressures. In development in partnership with rural vets, farmers and First Nations communities.
Why AVEA, why now?
Science is no longer telling us what might happen.
Every major measure of the planet’s health is now moving the wrong way — seven of the nine planetary boundaries that keep Earth’s systems stable have been crossed, and monitored wildlife populations have declined by an average of 73% since 1970.
The animals we live with, work with and depend on are absorbing this first — in heat stress, fire and flood, habitat loss, shifting disease pressure, failing feed and water. The farms, industries and communities built around them follow close behind.
Vets are uniquely positioned to make a difference. They rank among the five most trusted professions in Australia, and their work sits at the intersection of nearly everything these pressures touch: the 31.6 million pets in Australian homes, the livestock health underpinning $90 billion in agricultural production and exports, biosecurity, food security, wildlife and the eco-tourism it draws, public health, research and policy.
Few professions have such broad reach across the economy, society and the environment.
Our Policy Guidelines
We lead with care and we follow the evidence, bringing together a broad coalition of individuals and businesses to make positive, practical changes.
AVEA supports national and international action to:
- Rapidly accelerate the transition to renewable energy while phasing out fossil fuels.
- End deforestation and native forest logging, and substantially increase reforestation.
- Move towards sustainable, low-emissions agriculture — with consideration for animal welfare, resilient agricultural communities and the global food supply.
- Strengthen the environmental frameworks that protect biodiversity.
And we hold our own profession to the same standard, working to:
- Reduce the environmental impact of veterinary healthcare and agricultural systems, including sustainable waste disposal.
- Embed circularity, sustainability and emissions reduction across veterinary practice.
Our values
Act locally, collaborate globally. AVEA works across Australia — but not alone. As a member of the global WVEA network, we share learnings, frameworks and ideas with veterinary environmental networks worldwide.
Evidence-based. Our actions and policies are grounded in available research and scientific evidence.
Non-partisan. We support environmentally positive policies and call out damaging ones, regardless of the party, politician or nation behind them. Advocacy, not activism.
One Health. Veterinarians care deeply about animals, people and the environment. Consistent with the One Health paradigm, we recognise the three are inextricably linked.
Ethical business engagement. We engage with partners and businesses in line with our corporate engagement policies.
Professional trust and efficiency. We value our team’s commitment and honour the trust the community places in the veterinary profession. We stay low on bureaucracy and high on impact.
Our story
Australian Veterinary Environmental Alliance grew out of Vets for Climate Action, founded in 2019 by Queensland veterinarian Dr Jeannet Kessels after she posted a question to a Facebook group: “Will you join me in starting Vets for Climate Action? If not you, then who? If not now, then when?”
What began as a single post became a registered charity, a movement across the Australian veterinary profession, and — through the World Veterinary Environmental Alliance — a global initiative.
AVEA’s extended team includes veterinarians, business leaders, scientists, volunteers, and our patron Nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty AC.
In 2026, the organisation rebranded as the Australian Veterinary Environmental Alliance to reflect how it had evolved: not a single-issue advocacy group, but an alliance of veterinary professionals, scientists, animal industries and animal-loving Australians acting together on the full range of environmental pressures affecting the animals we share this country with.
From this movement, the World Veterinary Environmental Alliance (WVEA) was born, an organisation that sees the global veterinary profession collaborating on climate, sustainability, and biodiversity.
The Australian Veterinary Environmental Alliance (AVEA) is the operating name of Veterinarians for Climate Action Ltd (ABN 16 636 944 191), a company established in 2019. Veterinarians for Climate Action Ltd is registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) and holds deductible gift recipient (DGR) status, meaning donations to AVEA are tax-deductible in Australia.
Our constitution is available on request.
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