The food industry has a lot riding on, and even more to gain from, adopting practices that help stabilize the climate and support thriving ecosystems. And there is a growing convergence across the industry to get on board.
The stakes are clear: the industry is on the frontlines of the worsening impacts from a warming planet and nature’s decline. Farmers face growing threats, from stronger hurricanes threatening croplands across the Southeast to severe drought and flash flooding forcing herd reductions in West.
But for companies that drive innovation and take a market-leading position on sustainability, there are significant opportunities, ranging from developing cutting-edge products and boosting efficiency to gaining market share and providing more stable and affordable choices for consumers.
As a clear sign of growing momentum, major companies are taking critical steps individually and together, partnering with farmers and researchers to build a more sustainable and resilient agricultural system.
To accomplish this, the food industry is swiftly developing and implementing climate transition plans, the business strategies that lay out the key steps and timelines needed to ensure long-term profitability and supply chain viability, as well as working industry wide to navigate their shared challenges.
As more plans are rolled out, four critical areas of action we’re seeing in the industry and helping companies make progress on include:
Adopting more sophisticated climate scenario analysis
Food companies are increasingly adopting climate scenario analysis, an approach to assessing risks, along with business opportunities, based on modeling out different temperature scenarios. These forward-looking strategies can help companies determine what operational, supply chain, and market shift or regulatory impacts their businesses could encounter in a warming climate, so they can better manage risk and long-term success. After researching the transition plans of 50 of the largest food companies operating in North America engaged through the Food Emissions 50 initiative, Ceres found 16 companies have published climate scenario analyses as of this March, up from seven in 2024.
One example is Compass Group, a multinational food service provider that serves meals to colleges, hospitals, ballparks, and other venues around the U.S. Compass Group’s climate scenario analysis models how a changing climate creates risks from weather disasters and chronic threats such as rising seas or droughts to its operations and supply chain. The company’s assessment showed that chronic water stress, especially on beef and dairy farms in the U.S. and Australia, could potentially cause significant financial repercussions, including increasing annual costs by an estimated 2.5% to 5.0% by 2050. This is the kind of insight that underpins the company’s strategy of building out alternative food offerings, including meatless protein products, that avoid these kinds of risks.
Reducing potent agriculture emissions
More food companies are starting to capitalize on the advantages of limiting two types of agricultural pollution common in their supply chains – methane and nitrous oxide. Slicing these potent greenhouse gases offers companies a powerful pathway to mitigate risk quickly and cost effectively while also strengthening the industry’s resilience in the long run and meeting regulatory expectations that apply to global companies.
A noteworthy example is Campbell’s, which already surpassed its goal of reducing nitrous oxide by 20%. In 2023, the canned soup and snack maker slashed the gas by 25% through working with farmers in its supply chain to more efficiently apply nitrogen fertilizer on tomato plants and wheat. The move also saved those farmers the price of additional fertilizer.
Quantifying reduction strategies
Food companies are progressively putting numbers to their climate plans and publishing quantified reduction strategies. These strategies lay out all the approaches that a company will take to cut emissions across its operations and supply chains to meet its goals. This active and calculated planning demonstrates that a company is well prepared for the industry’s transition and positions them to lead in resilience, innovation, and sustained value creation.
In 2024, General Mills released a quantified strategy in its Climate Action Transition Plan, listing areas where is seeks to reduce emissions by category and over what timeframe. The cereal giant’s plan specifies by how much it intends to trim its greatest sources of emissions – from grains and dairy – through measures such as eliminating deforestation from its supply chain and promoting regenerative farming practices like reduced tillage and cover cropping.
Working with others on industry challenges
While individual action is essential, food companies cannot tackle the supersized challenges confronting the industry alone. There are countless proven paths toward fast-tracking resilient agriculture; however, many promising solutions are still early in development, cost prohibitive, or require advanced technical training for farmers. That’s why companies are working with other players in their supply chain and across the industry to overcome barriers and support widespread adoption.
A number of these partnerships are focused on pressing topics, such as the Dairy Methane Action Alliance, a global initiative designed to accelerate action and ambition to drive down methane pollution across dairy supply chains. Participants, including Kraft Heinz, Starbucks, General Mills, and Danone, have committed to crafting transition plans for methane action.
On top of these formal initiatives, members of the food industry will gather alongside other necessary players – including investors, policymakers, and research organizations – at upcoming global events like Climate Week New York City 2025 and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Brazil later this year. These international summits can spur timely conversations and spark new ideas for cultivating resilient agricultural practices that can benefit the entire
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