Abstract
The dramatic increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by humans over the past century and a half has created an urgency for monitoring, reporting, and verifying GHG emissions as a first step toward mitigating the effects of climate change. Fifteen percent of global GHG emissions come from agriculture, and companies in the food and beverage industry are starting to set climate goals. We examined the GHG emissions reporting practices and climate goals of the top 100 global food and beverage companies (as ranked by Food Engineering) and determined whether their goals are aligned with the science of keeping climate warming well below a 2°C increase. Using publicly disclosed data in CDP Climate reports and company sustainability reports, we found that about two thirds of the top 100 global food and beverage companies disclose at least part of their total company emissions and set some sort of climate goal that includes scope 1 and 2 emissions. However, only about half have measured, disclosed, and set goals for scope 3 emissions, which often encompass about 88% of a company's emissions across the entire value chain on average. We also determined that companies, despite setting scope 1, 2, and 3 emission goals, may be missing the mark on whether their goals are significantly reducing global emissions. Our results present the current disclosure and emission goals of the top 100 global food and beverage companies and highlight an urgent need to begin and continue to set truly ambitious, science-aligned climate goals.
Highlights
Since the start of the first Industrial Revolution around 1760, greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted from human activities have exceeded emissions from natural sources
Our results show the state of current disclosure and emission goals of the top 100 food and beverage companies and highlight an urgent need to begin and continue to set science-aligned climate goals
The number of companies setting goals and disclosing emissions is increasing, but we found that 31 of the largest companies in this sector still do not have any climate goals
Summary
Since the start of the first Industrial Revolution around 1760, greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted from human activities have exceeded emissions from natural sources. The rise in GHG concentration in the atmosphere over the years has steadily warmed the planet, leading to a rise in the global surface temperature (IPCC, 2021). One such shift in the global climate in the 1980s drew the concern of scientists and the public to the increasing atmospheric GHGs (Reid et al, 2016). In 1990, a report by the Stockholm Environmental Institute declared an increase of 2◦C above preindustrial times to be the global temperature limit, and going beyond that limit may result in “grave damage to ecosystems” (Rijsberman and Swart, 1990). Twenty-five years later, 196 countries signed the Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2◦C, preferably below 1.5◦C
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