Moving Beyond Carbon Neutrality in Food & Ag

Hardly a month has gone by in the past two years without a large food or agriculture corporate announcing a pledge to go carbon neutral by some future date. Given the food and agriculture industries contribute over a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, these commitments are certainly welcome. But as we increasingly learn about the industry’s potential to be a solution to reversing climate change through carbon sequestering farming practices, the question quickly became: is carbon neutrality enough? Shouldn’t these corporates have higher goals and be targeting carbon removal from the atmosphere?

Furthermore, is carbon even the right focus when you consider other important measures of sustainable and ecological farming?

To discuss this complex topic, we brought a diverse guest roster onto the podcast in another roundtable format episode, including: Ivo Degn, Climate Farmers CEO; Dani Nierenberg, president of Food Tank; Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director for the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems; Julie Kunen, Director of Sustainability for Oatly North America; and Debbie Reed, Executive Director for Ecosystem Service Market Consortium.

We discuss:

• Is carbon neutrality enough, or do we need to look beyond it?
• Is it detrimental to have such a strong focus on carbon neutrality? Does the focus detract from other important areas of regeneration and supporting all ecosystem services?
• Are carbon credits and overall certification of processes misleading and potentially damaging to the regenerative process?
• How corporations and startups might work better in the sector
• How are farmers and production workers affected by the carbon neutrality push?
• How might we design these systems to ensure farmers benefit
• How to ensure we don’t just end up “greenwishing” while searching for a solution

Show Notes

• Climate Farmers
• Food Tank
• Swette Center
• Oatly
• ESMC

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Thank you to Foodshot Global & New Hope Network for sponsoring the series.

And a huge thank you to everyone who helped us bring this podcast to life: 

Production: Cam Gray, Cofruition

Audio Editing: Tevin Sudi

Original Music: Rodrigo Barbera 

Art: Lola Nankin

Project Management: Patrick Carter