The status of corporate greenhouse gas emissions reporting in the food sector: An evaluation of food and beverage manufacturers

Abstract

The global food system is a key contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Companies can play an important role in reducing these emissions but doing so effectively requires accurate emissions data. This study assessed the status and quality of corporate emissions reporting and target setting in the food system mainly through a survey of the public emission reports for 2018 to the CDP by the largest 50 food and beverage manufacturers worldwide. In total, these companies reported 0.9 Gt CO2-eq. per year, although 7 companies did not publicly report emissions and many other companies provided incomplete reports of emissions. Direct emissions (Scope 1) comprised 8% of total reported emissions, and indirect emissions of purchased energy (Scope 2) 4% and of the value chain (Scope 3) 88%. Despite the large proportion of Scope 3 emissions, reporting for this scope was often incomplete and inconsistent. For example, land-use change emissions are key for the food system but they are only explicitly covered by 10% of the companies. In addition, more than a third of reported Scope 3 emissions were not covered by emissions reduction targets of the companies. Based on a first order approximation, we estimated that the 50 companies are associated with 1.9–3.8 Gt CO2-eq. per year, indicating that between 53 and 77% of emissions go under-reported. Together with the relatively poor reporting of Scope 3 emissions, our findings suggest that the food and beverages industry needs to urgently improve their GHG emissions reporting and management if they are serious about mitigating their impact on climate change. For more accurate emission reporting of companies in the food system, sector-specific guidance for Scope 3 is needed that prioritizes the most significant scope 3 categories, includes a dedicated category for emissions from land-use change and provides clear, easily applicable methods to determine the emissions from these high priority categories.