While fossil fuel companies are routinely held up as the primary targets for emissions reductions, dairy and livestock emissions receive far less policy scrutiny, despite their impact being comparable to that of the fossil fuel sector.
A recent Greenpeace Nordic analysis shows that global dairy companies’ methane emissions rival those of the fossil fuel giants. For instance, the methane emissions from Lactalis, Fonterra and Dairy Farmers of America combined rival those of oil and gas titan ExxonMobil.
In spite of the scale of the dairy industry’s emissions, agricultural methane is rarely discussed in major climate negotiations with the same urgency as oil and gas emissions. The Global Methane Pledge, which aims for countries to collectively reduce methane by 30% by 2030 (from 2020 levels), is entirely voluntary. And even with a target far lower than the 45% that UN Environment Program assessed was achievable, countries are not on track to meet this pledge. In addition, climate targets tend to give a huge carveout to agriculture, allowing a massive source of emissions of potent warming gases to continue unchecked.
In addition to methane emissions, the dairy industry has other important and large-scale environmental impacts. Unsustainable grazing and expansion of feed crops convert vast tracts of valuable, environmentally important land, meaning that intensive dairy farming drives deforestation in regions like the Amazon, and in Europe where the drainage of ecologically valuable peatlands into farms release vast quantities of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide and the degradation of permanent grasslands. Water pollution from nitrates and fertilizer-driven nitrous oxide emissions further amplify the environmental footprint of the dairy industry.
Greenwashing tactics — from vague labelling to strategically selected pilot projects that generate good publicity and branding benefits — allow major dairy corporations to evade scrutiny and maintain business as usual, while claiming to be taking climate action. Hiding dairy emissions behind a screen of greenwashing makes it difficult for consumers to make informed choices and for citizens and taxpayers to demand change. The livestock industry’s lobbying power may also cause policymakers to avoid regulating a sector whose significant emissions, if systematically reduced, would make a world of a difference in slowing down the rate of climate change.
The practice of hiding behind a green facade is so common among the global dairy giants that the tactics can be seen at work almost everywhere, with efforts largely falling into one of five categories:
Read more about these tactics and about real greenwashing cases within each category here.
Big Dairy misrepresents its true climate impact. Its milkwashing is dangerous as it threatens a liveable future for all of us. It misleads the public and helps the companies avoid urgent and real climate action.
Only by bringing dairy emissions and its core drivers (the power of Big Dairy and too much production and consumption and the expansion of industrial livestock) fully into the climate conversation can we hope to achieve the systemic, rapid and deep cuts needed to limit global warming.
Don’t let Big Dairy keep milking it.
Sign our petition to call for an end to milkwashing