We Can’t Wait for Food Manufacturers

What is the food industry doing to reduce emissions? First, green-house-gas (GHG) reduction is clearly in the domain of food manufacturers. The food-miles study I referenced in an earlier post concluded that transportation generates only 11% of food system total emissions (less as a percentage if you add emissions from consumer grocery shopping, cooking, cleanup, waste and recycling). So government increasing the fuel efficiency standards for transportation will help, but is not the main battle.

The second thing I found is encouraging. I found that a number of food industry heavy weights are voluntarily and publically committing to green-house-gas reduction goals¹.

Consumer Products Company	Stated US GHG Reduction Goal Own Operations Only
Anheuser-Bush	5% from 2005 to 2010
Campbell Soup	12% from 2005 to 2010
Colgate-Palmolive	25% from 2002 to 2010
Frito-Lay	14% from 2002 to 2010
Johnson & Johnson	15% from 2001 to 2010
Molson Coors Brewing	12% by 2010
PepsiCo	25% from 2006 to 2015
SC Johnson	8% from 2005 to 2010
Unilever	25% from 2004 to 2012 (global)

These goals however become far less encouraging when you realize that they only relate to "own operations". The goals essentially relate to direct energy consumed by company owned manufacturing plants, office building, employee travel and transportation. It does not include emissions from the agricultural and packaging supply chains. Own operations is a very narrow slice of the complete footprint. For example, Unilever's own operations footprint is 3.0 million MT CO2e while they estimate their full life cycle footprint, from raw material sourcing to product use and disposal, in the region of 120-240 million MT CO2e.

Notes: (1) Two leading vehicles are the Carbon Disclosure Project and EPA's Climate Leaders project.