The scope of corporate commitments is once again in doubt. David Burrows reports.
In perhaps one of the least surprising news stories of the year so far, an investigation by the NGOs Foodrise (formerly Feedback Global) and The Food Foundation showed that a decade’s worth of commitments – 600 of them in total – on climate and environment by the UK’s 10 largest supermarkets are “failing to translate to sufficient progress or public transparency”.
Still, this is important evidence added to the pile titled ‘voluntary agreements don’t work’. Indeed, the temptation to change targets, meddle with the wording on the quiet or not publicly report on progress is just too great – especially when everyone else is doing it too. Just ask PepsiCo, which has just reworked its climate targets.
One, two, ummm
Supermarkets and food and drink manufacturers continue to avoid mentioning scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, apart from in the small print somewhere in the appendices of their non-financial reports. Imagine trying to do that for, say, turnover or profits?
Take the most recent addition to the library of abstruse ESG reports from Tesco. It took us quite a few emails, some social media posts and a handful of working hours to determine whether or not the country’s largest grocer had reduced its scope 3 emissions or not.
“We’ve reduced our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) across the group by 65%, exceeding our December 2025 target of 60%,” wrote group chief executive Ken Murphy in his foreword. Fine. But scopes 1 and 2 account for just 1.11% of the chain’s total emissions, so in reality its efforts on climate are way, way off-track because scope 3 emissions have fallen by only 0.1%.
Tesco isn’t the only food company ‘at it’ in this way: a previous example from Ferrero is here; and it isn’t only them – see here for hospitality examples. Caterers, as we have noted before, appear to be bucking this trend, but it won’t be long before NGOs start scrutinising their strategies in detail as they have done the supermarkets and ‘big food’.
Carbon suckers
The team at the NewClimate Institute (NCI) revel in such matters. And they have just published an analysis of the climate commitments made by five of the world’s largest agribusinesses: Danone, JBS, Mars, Nestlé and PepsiCo. There are “promising initiatives” within these, the think tank notes, but dig a little deeper and “current actions from these companies are unlikely to result in meaningful emission reductions”.
One of the big issues for NCI is the heavy reliance on land-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to achieve targets. This “distracts” from a lack of commitment to cutting emissions, the research team said. Confusing guidance is not helping. “While the draft GHG Protocol land sector and removals guidance recommends setting separate targets for emissions reductions and removals, the current SBTi FLAG guidance appears to allow companies to count removals toward their reduction targets. We found that Danone, Nestlé and PepsiCo seem to be taking this approach,” NCI wrote.
These removals, through for example sequestration in soils, trees and hedgerows, are certainly important at a global level but NCI is among those wanting to see actual emissions reductions reported separately. Not doing so means companies can put the brakes on harder to reach transitions, like those involving the shift to a sustainable and healthy diet. “The assessed agrifood companies do not have strong commitments to shifting to plant-based protein thereby neglecting the most important measure to cut methane emissions,” the report reads. Only one – Danone – presents a plan to shift to plant-based proteins.
Angry carbon study
The language being used also needs a bit of a rethink, as the Food Facts website pointed out recently when assessing the merits of a study claiming “Net-zero beef is now a reality”. This was the research emerging from a McDonald’s-sponsored project at FAI Farms. The four-year (2020-2023) trial involving AgriCarbon transitioned an Oxfordshire-based 486-hectare organic farm from a rotational grazing system to an adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) one. The carbon balance of the farm was calculated to be “beyond net zero (-49.7t of CO₂e), thanks to a combination of relatively low emissions and carbon sequestration on permanent pasture”.
Harry Kamilaris at Agricarbon explained: “Our data supports companies like McDonald’s with their commitments for sustainable sourcing from carbon-rich and healthy soils. It allows them to reduce emissions in their supply chain by supporting farmers to introduce advanced grazing practices,” he added.
Cue a bit of a public spat between the researchers and The Guardian columnist George Monbiot. Holes were dug. Data was hauled about. And then the Sustainable Farming Trust threw itself into the mix with its new report: ‘Grazing livestock – it’s not the cow but the how’. Responding to Monbiot, SFT said: “Livestock can absolutely play a central role in a food system that is good for people and the planet, but we would agree with George that their intensive counterparts are causing a great deal of harm. So, the critical point is to differentiate between the livestock systems that are part of the problem and those which are part of the solution – which is what our report is all about.”
These are systems that rely far less on chemical inputs and “work with the land’s natural resources and biological processes”. In other words truly regenerative approaches – which are all the rage.
Pioneers pluck pie from the sky
There are different shades of regenerative – from the light touch, tinkering that’s going on across many big food projects to the decades-long transition that requires producers to dig deep into their mental resources.
PepsiCo attracted quite a few headlines for expanding its regenerative farming target last month (while watering down others as Coca-Cola and Unilever have both done). “PepsiCo has now increased its regenerative agriculture goal, aiming to drive the adoption of regenerative, restorative, or protective practices across 10 million acres by 2030,” the company said. The previous target was 7 million acres, while 3.5 million acres are already regenerating. As for definitions and monitoring of all this, there is a short document which states:
“An acre is considered as delivering regenerative agricultureimpact when it is an acre utilised to grow crops and when the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices results in quantified improvements on productive lands in at least two of the environmental outcome areas among soil, water, climate, and the promotion of biodiversity within productive acres, with a preference for climate to be one impact area.”
And: “An acre is considered as contributing to nature restoration or protectionwhen activities lead to biodiversity and ecological improvements on lands not used for agricultural production, and which remain out of agricultural production in the future, but which enhance the resilience of the ecosystem in the farming landscape.”
So, a couple of improvements in what is likely to be severely degraded farmland and hey presto, the acre is counted. Any transition has to start somewhere, but compare PepsiCo’s pledges to the landmark study just published by EARA, the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture. For decades “we’ve been doing things differently [40 years of organic and 10 years of regenerative agroforestry] … doing everything the opposite to our neighbours and the advice of the agronomists,” explained Sheila Darmos, a farmer producing fruits and olives in Greece who was involved in the research.
Darmos can now boast of some real progress as yields for some crops catch and pass those from conventional neighbours, while using 74% less fuel and absolutely no fertilisers or pesticides. The organic agroecological farm, which also has native weeds and nitrogen-fixing plants, is one of 78 assessed in the report ‘Regenerating Europe from the ground up’ – billed as the largest study on regenerative farming and busting the “myth” that food security requires more inputs and more intensification. As Forbes noted last week, the science of regenerative approaches is catching up with the promise.
