Ben & Jerry’s pilot aims to cut dairy farm GHGs to half of industry average by 2024
Image credit: Ben & Jerry’s
Ben & Jerry’s has made a bold commitment to bring greenhouse gas emissions
(GHGs) on 15 dairy farms to half the industry average by the end of 2024. Once
proven, pilot initiatives will be expanded to farms across the ice cream maker’s
global dairy supply chain.
“This approach to dairy farming could be a game changer,” said Jenna Evans,
Global Sustainability Manager for Ben & Jerry’s. “It has the potential to make a
meaningful reduction in emissions on dairy farms and help fight the worst
effects of climate change. All of us, especially businesses, must take action
before it’s too
late
and the climate crisis makes our world uninhabitable.”
Dairy ingredients account for more than 50 percent of Ben & Jerry’s total GHGs,
so the company is focusing on dairy farms as the best opportunity to reduce its
carbon footprint. “Project
Mootopia” will use
regenerative agricultural practices and new technology to address:
Enteric
emissions
— managing methane-producing cow burps through a high-quality forage
diet and innovative feed
additives
that reduce the generation of methane as cows digest their food.
Manure
— the roughly 80 pounds per day that each cow poops also produces
methane, but its impact can be minimized through methane-reduction
technology — such as manure digesters and
separators
— which can be used to produce both renewable
electricity
and animal bedding.
Feed
crops
— using regenerative practices to grow more grass and other feed and
cover
crops
to maintain healthy soils, increase carbon
sequestration,
improve the use of grassland, lower synthetic inputs, promote
biodiversity,
and raise the percentage of homegrown feed.
The pilot project will also promote renewable energy on dairy farms and continue
Ben & Jerry’s tradition of meeting high animal welfare standards. The 15
participating farms will be split between members of the Dairy Farmers of
America cooperative in the US and CONO Kaasmakers in the
Netherlands.
“Too often, corporations buy up carbon
offsets
from somewhere else to claim they are ‘carbon
neutral’,”
said Taylor Ricketts of the Gund Institute for Environment at the
University of Vermont. “Ben & Jerry’s is taking a more meaningful and direct
approach: attacking the systemic causes of climate change in its own supply
chain to achieve measurable, science-based
targets.
As they have done so often, Ben & Jerry’s is walking the talk and leading the
way,” Ricketts said.
“The intensive cooperation between research, advisors and farmers is the key to
developing tailored mitigation methods that are feasible, affordable and safe,”
said Theun Vellinga from Wageningen University and Research in the
Netherlands. “We have constructed the ‘Mitigation Engine’ as a tool to combine
the science around GHG mitigation with the knowledge and experience of the
farmer. We cannot stick to one mitigation option only; there is no silver
bullet. But a package of options will help us reach the target reduction.”
Ben & Jerry’s received $9.3 million to prove and scale regenerative practices
on dairy farms from the Climate and Nature
Fund
of its parent company, Unilever. With Ben & Jerry’s commitment to dairy farm
worker rights through Milk with Dignity,
Project Mootopia is expected to help the company continue its mission to produce
delicious ice cream that is climate
friendly
and socially
just.
Unilever ‘warms up’ ice cream freezers to help tackle emissions
Image credit: Unilever
Speaking of Unilever, the CPG giant is launching two pilots of its own to test
warmer ice cream freezers — with an aim of reducing energy use and GHGs by
roughly 20-30 percent per freezer — while ensuring the same ice cream quality
and consumer experience.
The two pilots, kicking off this month in Germany with a second pilot to
follow in Indonesia next year, are the first step in Unilever understanding
the product performance of its ice cream and the energy consumption of freezers
at warmer -12°C temperatures, in real-life conditions. With a current industry
standard in many markets of -18°C, Unilever’s ambition is to move the
temperature of its retail sales freezers to -12°C to improve energy efficiency
and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in a move which it hopes will drive
industry-wide change.
If the first two pilots are successful, Unilever will work to ‘warm up’ its
last-mile freezer cabinets in a phased approach. Unilever will start in markets
where its last-mile freezer cabinet carbon footprint is highest, to achieve the
maximum reductive impact on its own carbon emissions. It is hoped that other ice
cream manufacturers will follow.
The initiative builds on years of work by Unilever to optimize the energy
efficiency of its ice cream freezers — in 2014, the company launched
hyper-efficient new
freezers
for its Wall’s brand ice cream that it claimed could achieve an
industry-leading 70 percent energy reduction. Emissions from retail ice cream
freezers account for 10 percent of Unilever’s value chain GHG footprint.
President of Ice Cream Matt Close said: “These pilots will provide valuable
information on how much energy we can save and how our ice cream products
perform in warmer freezers, to ensure we deliver the same great-tasting ice
cream. We’re actively seeking to collaborate with partners from across the ice
cream and frozen food sectors to drive industry-wide change, so the collective
positive impact is far greater.”
‘Warming up’ the cold chain is just one of the steps Unilever is taking to reach
its ambitious climate targets — which include zero emissions from its operations
(scope 1 & 2) by 2030, halving the full value chain emissions of its products
(per consumer use) by 2030, and achieving net-zero emissions across its value
chain by 2039.
