One major objective of Welfare Quality® is to propose harmonized methods for the overall assessment of animal welfare on farm and at slaughter that are science based and meet societal concerns. The need for such a unified scoring system became clear from the evidence that: 1. Animal welfare remains an important concern for EU citizens (Welfare Quality® results on citizens’ expectations) and an information system; 2. It may contribute to the raising of welfare standards; 3. Eurobarometer findings (2007) suggested that EU consumers do not feel sufficiently well informed about animal welfare of animals and are thus unable to adequately take it into account when purchasing food; 4. Across Europe, welfare claims are often used on animal products and several schemes have been put in place to guarantee animal welfare for consumers. These schemes differ in the measures used to check animal welfare, in the thresholds set to differentiate high vs. poor welfare, or in the way the information is integrated to form an overall judgement. A unified scoring system seems necessary to ensure both the understanding and credibility of welfare claims; 5. The EU Commission, in a white paper to the parliament in 2002, launched the idea of a unified labelling system that could be used for bilateral negotiations between countries. Again this requires a unified scoring system.