The world’s major meat and dairy companies are generating combined greenhouse gas emissions on par with some of the biggest fossil fuel producers, according to new estimates from environmental and food policy experts issued ahead of the COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil, next month.
More than half of the estimated emissions stem from methane, a powerful but short-lived gas that scientists warn must be sharply reduced in this decade to keep global warming within 1.5°C.
The analysis, published today by Foodrise, Friends of the Earth US, Greenpeace Nordic, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, estimates that 45 major meat and dairy corporations generated more than 1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (in CO2e) – more than has been reported for Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer.
The study found that the largest five emitters of this group – JBS, Marfrig, Tyson, Minerva, and Cargill – together produced an estimated 480 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2eq), surpassing emissions reported for Chevron, Shell, or BP.
In addition, the estimated methane emissions of the 45 meat and dairy firms exceeded the reported methane of all EU countries and the UK combined.
The report also highlighted the issues of intensive meat and dairy production, on which many of the companies rely. “Intensive livestock production (also known as ‘factory farming’) is linked to significant environmental and social harms which extend beyond its high emissions impacts: high concentrations of manure which drive pollution of soils, air, and water; low animal welfare and pandemic risks driven by the rapid spread of animal disease; the growth of antibiotic resistance driven by over-use of antibiotics; food-feed competition where valuable cropland is used to feed animals rather than grow food for direct human consumption; and deforestation-risks linked to soy production for feed,” the authors noted.
And as governments head to COP30 in the heart of the Amazon – an ecosystem “devastated by global meat giants” – scientists are clear that a failure to bring down agricultural emissions will “torpedo us well past the Paris 1.5°C red line”, explained Shefali Sharma, global agriculture policy expert for Greenpeace Germany. “Farms that restore nature and communities, not corporate-controlled factories, should be at the centre of our food system,” she added.
Bloomberg this week reported that agri-businesses are planning to “showcase sustainable practices” at next month’s COP30. JBS, the world’s largest supplier of meat, for example plans to present new research on the carbon sequestration benefits of cattle farming.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in Brazil, and Embrapa, a government-backed agriculture research group, plan an Agrizone Pavilion that will highlight novel techniques for cultivating everything from açai to beef, and that will host hundreds of events over the two weeks of the conference, according to the ministry. “COP30 will be an opportunity for Brazil to showcase to the world the sustainable practices of its agricultural sector,” the ministry said in a statement to the news site, “combining the production of food, fibre and energy with environmental responsibility.”
Experts admitted that some progress is being made, for example better management of grazing and integration of crops and forests into pasture. However, they warned that this remains a sector that relies on deforestation, deforestation-linked crops and produces huge quantities of methane.
The methane emissions that coffee shops and foodservice companies are responsible for has also been under scrutiny this year. Starbucks, Costa, McDonald’s and others have “significant revenues” to invest in on-farm and in-shop initiatives to reduce methane, the Changing Markets Foundation claimed in its report Running Latte, published earlier this year.
Measurements of methane should certainly motivate minds. The new NGO report scrutinises dairy and meat companies’ emissions of the powerful but short-lived greenhouse gas, reductions of which can help put the brakes on global heating. The combined methane emissions from the 45 companies, which include Cargill, JBS, Lactalis Marfrig and Nestlé, are estimated to be more than the reported methane of all the EU27 countries and UK combined in 2023.
The NGOs called for the ‘polluter pays’ principle to be applied on large meat and dairy companies, who should also be mandated to accurately report on their full greenhouse gas emissions, with breakdowns by gas. Subsidies also need to be reformed to shift funds away from large-scale animal agriculture towards nature restoration and ecological agriculture systems centred on plant-based food production, the groups said.
In his foreword for the report, Paul Behrens, British Academy global professor at the University of Oxford, explained how large meat and dairy companies are mimicking the “fossil fuel industry’s playbook in its decades-long campaign of climate denial and sowing seeds of doubt. Even though there is a clear scientific consensus on the environmental need for dietary shifts, and a consensus they hold huge opportunities, meat and dairy company profits depend on their denial of their role as a driver of the crisis, as this report shows,” he added.
