"Professor Jennifer Jacquet examined the top 35 meat and dairy companies—which together, account for a large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions—and found that half aren’t even measuring their impact."
"Last fall, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) took out a full-page ad in The New York Times declaring that the U.S. “produces the most sustainable beef in the world” and that “cattle play an important role in protecting and enhancing our ecosystems.” Why was the nation’s beef trade group spending some of its $66.5 million budget to promote this climate-forward message? Because the conversation about the climate crisis has been heating up (pun intended) and policy makers increasingly connect food production, particularly meat and dairy, with the crisis—and rightfully so.
As much as 37 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions can be traced to the global food system, the majority from meat and dairy, pointing toward policy solutions that very much put the bull’s eye on the meat producers paying the NCBA’s bills. One recent study, for instance, found that high-income countries—especially the U.S., France, Australia, and Germany—could cut their agriculture emissions by two-thirds through diet change alone, largely by reducing meat consumption. But, despite findings like this one, meat companies are still largely out of the firing line when it comes to climate activism and policy making.
Last year, a study published in Climatic Change set out to explore the climate culpability of the top 35 animal agriculture companies globally in terms of climate impacts, building on an earlier report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and GRAIN. This new study investigates how the world’s biggest meat and dairy companies are being transparent (or not) about this responsibility and what role these companies play in a political and cultural conversation that is leading to obstruction on climate action."
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