Current:Home > Contact-usNorth America’s Biggest Food Companies Are Struggling to Lower Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions-LoTradeCoin
North America’s Biggest Food Companies Are Struggling to Lower Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions
View Date:2024-12-23 21:10:16
Some of the country’s biggest food companies are making a small dent in their greenhouse gas emissions, but most are failing to make substantial and critical reductions, even as consumers and government regulators are pushing harder for them to do so.
The investor advocacy group Ceres has tracked whether the 50 largest North American food and agriculture companies have set targets for disclosing and lowering their emissions. In a new report released this week, Ceres analyzed whether setting those targets actually resulted in lower emissions.
“This is the first time we, or really any organization that we know of, has assessed whether company emissions in this sector are actually decreasing,” said Meryl Richards, a program director at Ceres who works with food and beverage companies.
Ceres’ analysis says the answer is yes—sort of.
Explore the latest news about what’s at stake for the climate during this election season.
Greenhouse gas emissions emitted by companies or other entities are grouped into categories known as scopes. Scope 1 emissions come from a company’s direct operations, Scope 2 from its energy use. But most of the greenhouse gas emissions connected to food and beverage companies come from their supply chains, or Scope 3 emissions—from the farmers who grow crops or raise livestock that the companies rely on for their final products. If a company’s suppliers raise crops or cattle on deforested land, for example, their emissions will be higher because of the huge amount of carbon released when forests are cut. That’s part of the reason the global food system is responsible for up to 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
In the food industry, this Scope 3 category represents about 90 percent of a company’s overall emissions.
“The takeaway is that there is progress being made on Scope 1 and 2—operational emissions and emissions from electricity use, but lack of progress on Scope 3,” Richards said. “Those supply and value chain emissions [are] holding companies back from making progress on overall emissions reductions.”
“If you don’t have a target and don’t know what you’re aiming for, you’re much less likely to be heading in the right direction.”
— Meryl Richards, a Ceres program director
Ceres found that of the 50 food companies it tracks, 23 reduced their Scope 1 and 2 emissions over the past two years, but only 12 had reduced their Scope 3 emissions. Companies have more control over their Scope 1 and 2 emissions and can reduce them by taking steps like switching to renewable energy or more energy-efficient production processes, but emissions from their supply chains are more difficult to tackle.
The companies that were able to lower their Scope 3 emissions were those that set goals.
“If you don’t have a target and don’t know what you’re aiming for, you’re much less likely to be heading in the right direction,” Richards said. “There aren’t really major differences between the types of companies. What we do find is that the companies that are making progress are the ones that have prioritized making progress.”
Ceres highlighted a handful of companies that have set targets to reduce Scope 3 emissions, including Kraft Heinz, McDonald’s, Hershey, General Mills and Starbucks, and one that had actually reduced them—grain trading giant ADM. But Ceres would not share individualized data on each of the companies it analyzed or provide a full list of the companies that reduced emissions.
The findings suggest that reducing Scope 3 emissions is especially challenging for companies that depend on supply chains linked to carbon-intensive commodities, like meat, or crops linked to deforestation or land-use change, both of which release greenhouse gases. The challenge extends to the banks and financial institutions that invest in global agriculture.
In March, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision finalized rules requiring companies to disclose their climate risk to regulators. The requirements, which follow a similar reporting mandate that took effect in the European Union in 2023, will force companies to disclose emissions and transition plans for lowering them. New rules will put yet more pressure on food and agriculture-based companies to shrink their carbon footprints.
At the same time, because the commodities they rely on are so weather-dependent, food and agricultural companies are uniquely vulnerable to the climate change-induced weather extremes that are increasingly battering farm and livestock systems.
“We have to reduce emissions from this sector if we’re going to have any chance of limiting warming to 1.5, or even 2 or even 2.5 or 3 degrees, and at the same time the sector is so exposed,” Richards said. “It’s also part of the solution. So if none of these companies are addressing these emissions, they’re essentially digging their own grave.”
About This Story
Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.
That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.
Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.
Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?
Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.
Thank you,
David Sassoon
Founder and Publisher
Vernon Loeb
Executive Editor
Share this article
veryGood! (6)
Related
- Tennessee fugitive accused of killing a man and lying about a bear chase is caught in South Carolina
- Go to McDonald's and you can get a free Krispy Kreme doughnut. Here's how.
- Chase Bank security guard accused of helping plan a robbery at the same bank, police say
- Go to McDonald's and you can get a free Krispy Kreme doughnut. Here's how.
- Oklahoma school district adding anti-harassment policies after nonbinary teen’s death
- Best-selling author Brendan DuBois indicted on child sex abuse images charges
- Watch these 15 scary TV shows for Halloween, from 'Teacup' to 'Hellbound'
- Photos capture Milton's damage to Tropicana Field, home of Tampa Bay Rays: See the aftermath
- She's a trans actress and 'a warrior.' Now, this 'Emilia Pérez' star could make history.
- 1 dead and several injured after a hydrogen sulfide release at a Houston plant
Ranking
- Supreme Court seems likely to allow class action to proceed against tech company Nvidia
- Joan Smalls calls out alleged racist remark from senior manager at modeling agency
- Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve needed Lynx to 'be gritty at the end.' They delivered.
- 'It's gone': Hurricane Milton damage blows away retirement dreams in Punta Gorda
- Human head washes ashore on Florida beach, police investigating: reports
- Winter in October? Snow recorded on New Hampshire's Mount Washington
- Opinion: As legendary career winds down, Rafael Nadal no longer has to suffer for tennis
- US House control teeters on the unlikely battleground of heavily Democratic California
Recommendation
-
Watch as massive amount of crabs scamper across Australian island: 'It's quite weird'
-
Dove Cameron Shares Topless Photo
-
Software company CEO dies 'doing what he loved' after falling at Zion National Park
-
California man, woman bought gold bars to launder money in $54 million Medicare fraud: Feds
-
Are Dancing with the Stars’ Jenn Tran and Sasha Farber Living Together? She Says…
-
Sean Diddy Combs' Attorney Reveals Roughest Part of Prison Life
-
Jelly Roll album 'Beautifully Broken' exposes regrets, struggle for redemption: Review
-
Joan Smalls calls out alleged racist remark from senior manager at modeling agency