Feedback, a UK NGO, has a provocative plan to reduce food-related GHG emissions by challenging UK supermarkets to sell 50% less meat and dairy by 2030. The plan is grounded in the logic that the UK cannot meet its net-zero climate targets without reducing emissions from the agriculture and food sector, and that supermarkets play a huge role in influencing what foods consumers purchase.
Feedback, which focuses on practical and policy methods to reduce food waste, provides a menu of choices for supermarkets to act on. These range from changes to store layouts and marketing in favour of plant-based alternatives, to displaying smaller meat portions. More significant actions include reducing the choice of meat and dairy products, removing “fake farm” brands that are a cover for factory farms and not selling UK chicken raised on Brazilian soy.
“The validity and promise of meat and dairy reduction as an essential element of climate mitigation is no longer the subject of real debate. What has been lacking to date has been a clear pathway to realizing the benefits of this change, with policy-makers and businesses reluctant to go further than vague acknowledgements of the benefits of dietary change,” the Feedback report says.
It goes on to say that reducing the amount of meat and dairy consumed in high-income, industrialized countries — combined with halving food waste — could deliver 20% of the global emissions reductions required to meet the Paris Agreement’s limit of 2°C of global warming.
Feedback’s proposal sits at the heart of the debate of who needs to act to fight the climate crisis. Is it up to individuals to change their behaviours and use their buying and voting powers to make more environmentally-friendly choices? Collectively, individuals can drive significant change but businesses and policy makers can’t expect to offload responsibility onto the consumer as a way of avoiding taking action themselves.
Challenging businesses to sell less of their traditional products is a provocative idea. Commercial enterprises are wired to pursue short term profits, balanced with long-term strategic success. Will they see it as being in their interests to pursue a longer term public good — such as reducing emissions — without government incentives?
To effectively combat the climate crisis, we will need to wrap our heads around innovative, more aggressive proposals like this one from Feedback. The answer lies in a concerted effort on the part of the consumer, aggressive climate policy frameworks from governments, and new product offerings and significant emissions reductions from businesses.