 this would “be equivalent to taking all of the cars in Los Angeles, Beijing, London and New York off the road.” Currently they produce 263.7 million tons of greenhouse gases, more than half coming from the production of agricultural materials from their supply chains.
The earlier targets set by these two companies to reduce harmful emissions were neither science-based nor a reflection of their full contribution to the problem, as per Oxfam. Moreover, the advocacy group’s investigations revealed that an Indonesian supplier of palm oil to both these companies is “allegedly involved in burning forest land to produce palm oil.” This contributed to a massive forest fire that has created greenhouse gas emissions “equivalent to the annual emission from 10.3 million cars.”
Both these companies have now joined BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy), which is an advocacy coalition of business that work with policy makers to pass climate and energy legislation. They have also signed on to the group’s ‘Climate Declaration,’ joining a list of signatories that include big American businesses like Apple, Nike and Disney.
The fight against harmful emissions
Greenhouses gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and others – trap heat to the earth’s atmosphere, increasing temperatures across the globe. Of these, carbon dioxide makes up 77 percent of greenhouse emissions, and US is one of the top emitters, second only to China.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said earlier in April this year that even if global emissions were lowered by 40 to 70 percent by 2050 and reduced to near-zero by the end of the century, it would still result in an increase of the global average temperature by two degrees Celsius. Most of the greenhouse emissions are caused by industries producing oil, gas and coal.
However this is just a fraction of this campaign against reducing effects of climate change. The eight other food producing companies have yet to make any bold moves, though Oxfam and its allies have approached them already.
“Some companies are already doing better than others, so there are some laggards and some stand-out leaders in the pack,” said Coleman. “We hope that some of the remaining laggards start taking on some of these commitments.”
Oxfam has been partnering with other advocacy groups and activists as part of the campaign. These include the Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, and Change.org.
“Our approach is really a critical friend approach – we don’t want to demonize these companies,” explained Coleman. “A lot of actions are most effective in working through allies.”
While Coleman said that they were surprised at how quickly General Mills made their commitment – within two months after Oxfam launched their campaign – she said it just signified how powerful public and consumer pressure can be on a big, public-facing brand like General Mills. “That’s an empowering message and one that consumers should feel pretty excited about.”
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