The food and agriculture sector contributes significantly to climate change, representing about a third of global emissions. It is therefore crucial that the major players in the sector take urgent climate action. The 2025 Corporate Responsibility Monitor finds that while disclosed measures to reduce emissions may have short-term effects, they are unlikely to result in deep, structural emission reductions across the sector. In this context, agrifood companies and international standards must act to strengthen climate action and help reverse this harmful trajectory.
The uncertainty surrounding how land-based carbon dioxide removals contribute to meeting targets undermines overall emission reduction goals and distracts from the lack of commitment to key transitions needed in the sector.
There is a lack of strong commitment and clear targets for transitioning to plant-based protein, thereby neglecting one of the most effective measures to reduce methane emissions.
Despite encouraging progress on this transition, zero-deforestation commitments still have limited coverage in terms of the commodities and suppliers they target.
Lack of importance recognized to the need of reducing both synthetic and organic fertilisers use.
Commitments and progress on reducing food loss and waste are noticeably absent from most decarbonisation strategies.
“As agrifood companies advance their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they are not alone: standard setters must reinforce the push for structural emission reductions and require separate targets for emission reductions and carbon removals.”
Benja Faecks – Expert on Global Carbon Markets, Carbon Market Watch
No land-based removals for emission reduction target achievement
Set separate emission reduction targets and targets for land-based removals to increase transparency, robustness and accountability of climate strategies.
Commitment to key transitions
Companies need to commit to the key transition measures needed for the agri-food sector. This includes shifting to plant-based proteins, halting deforestation, reducing fertiliser application and cutting food loss and waste. Other accompanying measures can play an important role in the short term.
Reporting of emissions per greenhouse gas
To establish a credible link between key transitions and emission reduction targets, as well as tracking progress more accurately, companies must specify their emissions reduction commitments by greenhouse gases.
Omit emission reductions associated with EACs without physical traceability
Given the remaining uncertainty surrounding commodity certificate constructs like mass balance and book-and-claim, for which no physical traceability from the certificate to the commodity is guaranteed, companies should abstain from counting emission reductions associated with their purchases towards target achievement. Standards should provide clear guidance on this.
Expand the coverage of deforestation targets
Companies should expand their deforestation-related measures to cover both direct and indirect suppliers and extend them across all commodities in their supply chains.
You can find more information about the 2025 Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor methodology here.
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