Key messages:

• Companies are responsible for three quarters of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from food systems, driven mainly by agricultural production and land-use change in their value chains.

• Food and agriculture companies are increasingly using voluntary standards to develop climate and nature strategies. But the sector is failing to make sufficient progress, with food system emissions set to rise between now and 2030.

• Policymakers are more frequently mandating action from companies on climate and nature, using existing voluntary standards as the basis for new sustainability legislation.

• Analysis from this report estimates that, to mitigate 90% of agriculture and land-use change emissions in food sector value chains, food and agriculture companies should expect sector-wide costs and investments of approximately USD $205 billion per year (2025-2030).

• While significant, these costs are manageable for the sector as a whole as they represent less than 2% of total food sector revenues and come with co-benefits:

• Approximately one fifth of these costs are actually investments in new and growing markets, which could lead to potential additional returns of up to USD $190 billion per year by 2030;
• Some on-farm solutions provide savings of up to USD $30 billion per year;
• They deliver other critical co-benefits, such as more resilient supply chains and helping to meet nature targets;

• However, the burden of implementing these mitigation solutions does not fall equitably across value chains, nor will the benefits of implementation be shared by all.

• A critical challenge is that these costs are currently projected to land most heavily on farmers, who are the least able to pay despite being central to the sector’s shift to net-zero;

• Overcoming this inequity requires companies to reassess how they partner with actors in the value chain, particularly farmers, and how they engage with policymakers to incentivize and accelerate action.