Supermarkets urged to disclose and address methane emissions

Food retailers are being urged to address methane emissions from their meat and dairy supply chains as new research reveals that none of the top 20 companies report on or have set targets on methane.

Household names like Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour, Lidl, Tesco and Walmart are “drastically missing the mark” when it comes to methane – which represents a third of their emissions on average. That’s the conclusion of a new study published this week by Changing Markets and Mighty Earth.

Graded on their action around methane emissions as connected to meat and dairy production, only one grocery firm (Tesco) received more than 50% of the points available. Carrefour, Ahold Delhaize and Sainsbury’s got between 30% and 40%, while US-based retailers got the lowest scores at less than 10%.

Gemma Hoskins, Global Methane Lead at Mighty Earth said: “Food retailers are ignoring the methane problem hidden in the meat and dairy aisles and risk losing consumer trust. Methane is a superheater greenhouse gas responsible for about a quarter of the heating the planet has already experienced. But it’s short-lived, so rapid cuts would be a win for climate and nature. Retailers are uniquely positioned to urgently drive down agricultural methane emissions in their supply chains. That starts with being honest about the impact of the products they sell and working harder and faster to reduce that impact.”

Methane targets and plant-based alternatives

The NGOs call on food retailers to set science-based targets to reduce methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030 – in line with the Global Methane Pledge – and to publicly report these emissions annually. 

While European companies fare better than their US counterparts at disclosing emissions across all Scopes following the GHG Protocol, no company currently reports on methane emissions separately, and none have set a separate reduction target for their methane emissions. 

This is despite the fact that half of their Scope 3 emissions is estimated to come from meat and dairy – which means they are in large part methane.

The Methane Action Tracker also evaluated retailers based on their offering of protein alternatives. There again, US retailers including Costco and The Kroger Co. ranked in the bottom ten, while Germany’s Schwartz, the UK’s Tesco and Sainsbury’s and the Netherlands’ Ahold Delhaize got higher points. Ahold Delhaize, for example, has a goal to sell 50% plant-based food by 2030.

According to the report, a 50% shift to plant proteins by six leading food retailers alone could save emissions equivalent to removing 25 million cars from roads in the EU.

‘No real leaders’

Maddy Haughton-Boakes, Senior Campaigner at the Changing Markets Foundation warned that methane emissions are “a major blindspot of supermarkets”. 

“Some retailers acknowledge the problem and have taken small steps, but none are treating it with the urgency it demands—there are no real leaders here. Cutting methane this decade is our emergency brake on runaway global heating, yet retailers are barely pressing it. The companies that dominate our food system must step up now and take real action to slash their methane emissions,” she added.

In order to remedy the situation, supermarkets are asked to urgently develop climate plans to reduce methane from meat and dairy sources, increase transparency on methane emissions, set an ambitious target to reduce them on an absolute basis, and aim for a 60/40 plant-based versus meat protein split.