Growing the good

Truth, Lies and Culture Wars: Social listening analysis of meat and dairy persuasion narratives

November 2023

This report is the most comprehensive analysis of the misinformation war with regards to the environmental and health impacts of meat and dairy production and consumption, uncovering connections to the livestock industry interests’ as well as conspiracy theories fuelled by far right political and media figures.

Despite a scientific consensus on the need to reduce emissions from animal agriculture in order to avoid dangerous climate change, calls for a shift to healthier and more plant-based diets, and for greater environmental regulation of the sector, often face significant backlash. Some of the most severe backlash is found on social media.

Analysing nearly 1 million misinformation posts, clear narrative trends and thematic peaks highlight the specific ways in which misinformation is attacking alternative proteins, undermining climate and nutrition science, promoting conspiracies and exaggerating the benefits of meat and dairy.

The report also uncovers the main accounts driving this information and explores two case studies in further detail: misinformation linked to a non-peer reviewed study on lab-grown meat from UC Davis, and; misinformation around the Dutch nitrogen policies.

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Seeing Stars: the new metric that could allow the meat and dairy industry to avoid climate action

November 2023

This briefing provides key points on how this new metric, pushed by the meat and dairy lobby groups, could radically alter how livestock methane emissions are assessed and could have profound implications on climate policies, equity, resulting in a setback for the much needed transformation of the food system.

To exemplify how this metric could benefit the industry at a company and country-level, the briefing offers rough calculations with staggering results:

• Tyson could claim negative emissions of roughly minus 82.6 mt CO2e with 30% reductions by 2030, while with GWP100 their emissions would still be 58.5 mt CO2e – similar to annual emissions of Peru.
• Fonterra with 30% reduction between 2020 – 2030 could claim negative emissions of 19 mt CO2e, while with GWP100 calculations it would still be responsible for 21.6 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent – similar to annual emissions of Sri Lanka.
• Both companies could claim climate neutrality with tiny levels of annual emissions reductions, 1.4% and 1.7% respectively.
• Countries like New Zealand could claim negative emissions with only 10% reduction in methane by 2038.

This briefing urges caution on the part of policymakers, who must resist lobbying attempts by the meat and dairy industry and avoid adopting the GWP* metric.

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Net-zero integrity: Nestlé’s methane blindspot.

April 2023

Nestlé is among the largest food companies in the world, with a huge climate footprint. Due to its focus on dairy, a large chunk of their emissions comes from powerful, but short-lived greenhouse gas, methane. We estimated that the company’s dairy supply chains emit roughly 8.7 million tonnes of methane (in CO₂ equivalent) –  twice as much as the methane emissions from Switzerland’s entire livestock sector. In light of its huge contribution towards global warming, this briefing analyses Nestlé’s climate plan to reach net zero by 2050. We analysed its net-zero roadmap against the ‘Integrity Matters’ report, published by the High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities in November 2022 and endorsed by UN Secretary General, who said this report sets a new standard for companies’ net zero commitments. The analysis finds that Nestlé’s plan is not fit-for-purpose: out of the nine (relevant) recommendations, it has ‘partially met’ five and completely failed four. Crucially, Nestlé’s plan also ignores climate science with regards to the crucial role that cutting methane emissions plays in staying below 1.5 degree temperature increase. The company does not have a separate science-based methane target and does not report its methane emissions separately. Current trends demonstrate Nestlé’s lack of ambition: over the last five years company’s GHG emissions targeted by the net-zero plan have only dropped by 1%.

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Feeding Us Greenwash: An analysis of misleading claims in the food sector

March 2023

This report exposes the rampant greenwashing by the food industry and explores how consumers respond to green claims made by companies.  Over the past year, Changing Markets conducted market research to assess how reliable green claims on food products are, with a particular emphasis on meat and dairy, as the climate impacts of these products dwarfs those any other food. This resulted in the addition of over 50 examples of products, projects and advertisements to our greenwash.com website, where we track corporate greenwashing.

In this briefing we summarise the key trends identified through this analysis and present the findings of the YouGov polling that we commissioned in the UK and Germany. The polling was designed to explore whether the most common green claims in the food sector are impacting consumer choice. We found that almost half (49%) of adults in the UK and Germany regularly buy products with sustainability labels or certification and that almost a third (29%) are willing to pay more for products labelled carbon neutral, climate positive or low methane.

This confirms that there is a clear opportunity for businesses to capitalise on people’s environmental concerns through greenwashing, without taking genuine positive action for the environment. Therefore, it is urgent that regulators start taking a closer look at food products and companies, regulate green claims, and ensure rules are properly enforced across different markets.

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Hot Money: 40 Financial Institutions are funding a climate-changing agri-methane footprint

January 2023

This joint report with Planet Tracker focuses on the 20 investors and 20 banks that are funding the methane generating activities of 15 of the leading meat and dairy companies worldwide. Collectively these financial institutions fund a methane footprint that could exceed 503 Mt CO2e – nearly as big as the CO2 emissions of Saudi Arabia. Top 20 investors (including Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and Fidelity) have a methane footprint of 68 mt of CO2e – similar to the CO2 footprint of Austria – from their investments in these companies. The top 20 banks (including JPMorgan Chase and Co., Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas) have a methane footprint of 202.5 Mt CO2e – almost 3x higher than investors and close to the CO2 footprint of countries like Spain. They provided funding of USD 400 billion to these major meat and dairy companies for the past 10 years.

This report also shows that none of these financial institutions have policies or commitments in place to cut methane from agriculture. This is in spite of the fact that all but one are based in countries that have signed the Global Methane pledge.

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Emissions Impossible: How emissions from big meat and dairy are heating up the planet – Methane Edition

November 2022

This joint report with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) for the first time estimates the methane emissions of five of the largest meat and ten of the largest dairy companies. Their combined methane emissions are roughly 12.8 million tonnes, which equates to over 80% of the European Union’s entire methane footprint. These companies’ emissions represent around 3.4% of all global anthropogenic methane emissions and 11.1% of the world’s livestock-related methane. Individual companies’ methane emissions are also comparable to countries’ livestock-related methane emissions. For instance, Marfrig’s methane emissions rival those of Australia’s entire livestock sector, Tyson’s are comparable to the Russian Federation’s, and Dairy Farmers of America’s to the livestock methane of the UK. JBS’s methane emissions far outpace all other companies. Its methane emissions exceed the combined livestock methane emissions of France, Germany, Canada and New Zealand or compare to 55% of US livestock methane.

The report also provides the latest estimates for the overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the same companies, which amount to around 734 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent – higher than the emissions of Germany. If these 15 companies were treated as a country, they would be the tenth largest GHG-emitting jurisdiction in the world. Their combined emissions also exceed those of oil companies such as ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell.All of the governments where these companies are headquartered (with the exception of China) have signed up to the Pledge. They must significantly ramp up ambition to reduce methane from the livestock industry. Our findings show that a comprehensive set of regulations is needed, including binding GHG and methane reduction targets for the agriculture sector in line with the global goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C.

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Methane Matters: Towards a global methane agreement

November 2022

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High Steaks: Taking methane from animal farming out of its blindspot

October 2022

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Stranded in a vicious cycle? The case for transformation in animal agriculture

July 2022

The production of meat and dairy is a significant source of carbon and methane emissions, but at the same time also uniquely dependant on stable climate conditions. Industry estimates that the production of red meat and dairy will grow by more than 50% by 2050. However, this is at odds with climate science, which predicts significant disruptions to the sector, estimating 7-10% decline already at 2 degree temperature increase. The alarming effects of climate change caused disruptions are already felt by the farmers around the world. With the world currently on the trajectory of 3 degree warming, this is set to get much worse.

In this briefing, we present a survey of over 200 respondents from the investor community which showed that over 80% are concerned that climate change represents a material risk to meat and dairy industry-related investments, and over 80% said that a lack of mitigation of climate change could lead to stranded assets in this industry. At the same time, more than half of respondents (55%) think that investors are not sufficiently addressing these risks. The survey also shows that investors say more emphasis should be put on mitigation of methane emissions with 94% saying that reducing methane emissions alongside carbon emissions is important. 83% said that investors should encourage companies to reduce their methane emissions. The report ends with recommendations for investors to engage with the meat and dairy industry and ensure that it begins its transformation by radically reducing its carbon and methane emissions.

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High Steaks: How focusing on agriculture can ensure the EU meets its methane-reduction goals

June 2022

The agricultural sector is the largest source of methane emissions in the EU, responsible for 8 Mt of methane per year or 53% of EU’s overall methane emissions. This is equivalent to the total emissions from 50 coal-fired power plants, according to conservative calculations. Yet, the EU has very few policies to deal with emissions from its meat and dairy industries. For this reason, the Changing Markets Foundation commissioned research to the independent consultancy CE Delft to calculate methane reduction potential of different measures across the agriculture, energy and waste sectors. The report shows that the EU is currently on track for around 17% methane reductions by 2030, which falls short to the 30% target it has committed to by signing the Global Methane Pledge. It is also significantly less than what the science says is needed. However, there is a lot of potential. Through a combination of measures in agriculture, the EU could cut its methane emissions by up to 36%. The biggest potential comes from policies that would drive the uptake of healthier diets, as recommended by national dietary health guidelines. According to this Europeans should cut their red meat consumption by half and reduce their dairy consumption by a quarter. The study also investigates measures available in other sectors and concludes that the maximum reduction from all available measures could be up to 68%. Our briefing, supported by 6 NGOs, ends with policy recommendations for the European Commission and governments to realise potential of methane reductions in agriculture.

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Methane Matters: A comprehensive approach to methane mitigation

March 2022

In November 2021, more than 110 countries committed to the ‘Global Methane Pledge’, an initiative launched at the UN Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. The Pledge has the collective goal of reducing global methane emissions by 30% by 2030, compared with a 2020 baseline. This report, published in partnership with Environment Investigation Agency (EIA) and Global Alliance for Incineration Alternatives (GAIA), looks across the three main sectors of anthropogenic methane emissions: agriculture, energy and waste, and outlines policy measures that governments must adopt to maximize methane reductions. Because methane is a very potent but a short-lived gas, rapid and deep reductions in methane emissions represent a key opportunity to slow the rate of global warming and increase humanity’s chances to stay below 1.5-degree temperature increase. According to the UN Environment Program’s Global Methane Assessment (GMA), methane emissions should be reduced by at least 45% in this critical decade of climate action. With 2030 only a few years away, this report provides recommendations for governments on immediate actions that can be taken in national action plans, identifying specific measures and policies to cut methane across sectors. In parallel, the report calls on governments to enhance global governance on methane to enable and support national action on methane, with provisions on monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), financial and technical assistance.

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Blindspot: How lack of action on livestock methane undermines climate targets

October 2021

The livestock agricultural sector is the single largest contributor to man-made methane emissions. Enteric fermentation in stomachs of ruminants, such as cows and goats, and manure management is responsible for 32% of this potent greenhouse gas, which is 86-times stronger than CO2 over 20 years. Scientists have warned that rapid reductions of methane emissions are needed to slow the rate of global heating and avoid dangerous climate tipping points. For this reason, we have investigated the policies and actions of some of the biggest meat and dairy producing countries and companies to reduce their methane emissions. Our analysis shows that all of the 20 meat and dairy giants scored poorly, which indicates that the largest corporate methane emitters are oblivious to the problem and their responsibility to address it. Only seven of the 20 companies have science-based targets for their overall GHG emissions, but none of them report methane emissions separately or have any targets or action plans to reduce them. Although over half of the companies invest in methane abatement measures, they do not disclose how much these investments are. We have also discovered that none of the 18 countries with the biggest livestock industries has effective policies in place to reduce methane emissions. Although most of these countries report their livestock methane emissions, these have been remained stable or have even increased in half of the countries analysed over the last five reported years. The report calls for rapid policy action to address this problem. In particular, countries where the average consumption of meat and dairy is above recommended intake should develop national action plans with binding policies for consumption reduction. These should focus on a shift to a diet containing less and better meat and dairy, with the promotion of alternative protein and a shift to better food production systems. On the industry side, there should be specific regulations requiring companies to set science-based targets to cut their carbon and methane emissions, both by using technical measures and by reducing livestock production.

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Growing the Good: The Case For Low-Carbon Transition in the Food Sector

October 2018

This report looked at the climate, environmental and health impacts of overconsumption of meat and animal products, current market trends and public policies in this area. It found that the number of vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians is growing rapidly, particularly among the younger generations, a trend which is being reflected in a buoyant market for plant-based products and a wide array of companies manufacturing innovative meat alternatives. However, the report also found that there is a complete lack of public policies supporting these positive consumer and market shifts, which are needed to ensure the food sector is part of the solution to climate change. This stands in stark contrast with significant array of measures supporting a low-carbon transition in sectors such as energy and transport. Shockingly, instead of supporting such societal trends, politicians are succumbing to pressure from meat producers by introducing new legislative measures aiming to restrict market growth for alternatives, such as the recent French ban on terms like ‘vegan burger’, and continuing to support unsustainable agricultural production systems dominated by intensive meat and dairy farmers and producers. The report offers a number of recommendations for policy makers around the world to support such transition, including putting in place ambitious climate targets that drive emission reductions in animal agriculture in line with Paris agreement; introducing fiscal policies to reduce meat demand and consumption; implementing dietary guidelines that encourage a shift to healthier diets including the reduction of animal products; shifting subsidies away from polluting intensive animal farms and addressing negative externalities of animal agriculture; incentivising the production of diverse and underused protein crops, such as pulses, for human consumption; and funding more research and development of plant-based and other meat alternatives, such as clean meat.

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