Summary: One brazen example of milkwashing comes from Arla, who changed their internal documents to make it look like they reduced emissions, when in reality they did nothing more than change their counting system. This “reduction” then became the foundation for their “sustainable” image. But it doesn’t stop there.
Arla has been criticised for focusing on emission per litres of milk/protein and concealing its total emissions. The climate heats up due to total emissions in the atmosphere, not per litre of milk - especially if more and more litres are being produced! Indeed, methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, reportedly constitutes 96% of the company’s emissions footprint.
Arla often portray themselves as leaders of sustainable agriculture, using 2015 as the base year when comparing year over year emission reductions. The problem? Between 2015 and 2016, they changed the way they measure their emissions resulting in a magical 6% emission drop, that even Arla can’t explain. This was uncovered in 2022 and Arla promised to review this error.
The Financial Supervisory Authority in Sweden considered this type of accounting to be misleading at the time:
"Decisions are based on this type of information. For example, an investor may decide to invest in a company. It could be a decision to provide financing to a company. If you don't have the right information, you make decisions on the wrong basis" said Johanna Fager Wettergren, head of Sustainability at the Financial Supervisory Authority.
But, even though they promised to correct this error, Arla continued to use the same numbers and even promote it. Indeed, Greenpeace Nordic revealed that two years after the initial critique, Arla’s 2024 annual report still used this misleading baseline to report their emissions reductions. Greenpeace Nordic has now filed a complaint about this, as such creative accounting is not only deceiving the public, it can also be considered illegal according to both Swedish and Danish Annual Accounts Act