Last month, the French food company Danone — owner of milk and yogurt brands like Activia and Horizon Organics — pledged to cut absolute methane emissions from its milk supply chains by 30 percent by 2030, making it the first major food company with a methane-specific emissions target.
Green groups have applauded the new pledge. Methane is a greenhouse gas some 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over its first 20 years in the atmosphere, and food companies rarely report it separately from their CO2 emissions, even though agriculture is responsible for roughly a quarter of methane emissions worldwide.
But reducing those methane emissions is far from simple. A “methane ambition” document released by Danone outlines a few options, although somewhat vaguely and without acknowledging some of the controversies surrounding them. Some experts worry that Danone’s strategies could encourage dairy farmers in the company’s supply chain to lean on “unproven techno-fixes” — like special diets to reduce the methane in cow burps — which could distract from the need for more... Read more
