I. Introduction

In 2021, JBS, the largest meat company in the world with emissions larger than those of Italy [1], announced that it would be ‘net zero’ by 2040 [2]. JBS executives spread the word. The company ran a full-page ad in the New York Times and dedicated eight pages of its 2021 JBS sustainability report to its net-zero commitment [2]. In 2024, the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against JBS over this claim, alleging the statement was misleading, or ‘greenwashing,’ because the company had no clear and achievable plan to reach the 2040 target [2]. Here, we examined the extent of greenwashing efforts present across the global meat and dairy industry’s sustainability reports.

Food systems are associated with high environmental impacts and account for approximately one-third of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [3]. Animal-based foods, in general, have disproportionately high environmental impacts relative to other foods, and the animal agriculture sector has been singled out for its environmental impacts [4,5]. In terms of climate impacts, emissions from animal-based food production (including those from crops grown to feed these animals) represent 57% of total global food production emissions [6].

Over the past 50 years, many meat and dairy companies have shifted from small-scale farms to consolidated, large, intensified animal agriculture operations [7,8]. Although industrial meat and dairy operations emphasize marginal efficiency, they nonetheless result in substantial absolute GHG emissions: enteric methane produced from large numbers of ruminant animals (e.g., cows and sheep); methane and nitrous oxide generated from manure management; nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer application for feed and forage crops; land use changes for feed production and grazing; fossil fuel use during feed and animal production and emissions from post-farm outputs (e.g., packaging, retail, and transportation) [4,9]. Using 2016 data, one study estimated that the largest 35 meat and dairy companies were responsible for 15% of animal agriculture emissions [10]. The largest companies are large emitters; a subsequent analysis using data from 2022/2023 estimated that, collectively, the top five emitters (JBS, Marfrig, Tyson, Minerva, and Cargill) account for approximately half (47%) of total GHG emissions among the 45 largest meat and dairy companies, and that their combined emissions exceed the emissions of individual major oil companies, including Chevron, Shell, and BP [11].

Efforts to reduce emissions of GHGs such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane are critical to slowing the rate of global warming [12]. Animal agriculture accounts for roughly 32% of anthropogenic methane emissions globally. Given methane’s short atmospheric lifespan and potent heat-trapping capacity (28 times that of carbon dioxide on a 100-year timescale), immediate reductions in methane emissions support achieving more ambitious climate change mitigation goals [12,13]. This is something at least some elements of the meat and dairy industry have been aware of since 1989 [14].

Sustainability in agriculture is considered to include production practices that minimize impact on the environment, public health, human communities, and animal welfare [15], which are concerns shared by consumers [16], citizens and legislators, and to some extent the companies themselves. One response has been an increase in companies publicly committing to sustainable practices [17]. Meat and dairy companies use various consumer-facing communications (i.e., social media, executive interviews, websites, sustainability reports, and advertising) to influence both consumers and investors. The information in company sustainability reports varied in scope and scale; reports typically include information about memberships, various certifications, traceability, global accountability, targets, and supply chain goals [18].

Some communications from companies may be classified as greenwashing, defined as “the dissemination of false or deceptive information regarding an organization’s environmental strategies, goals, motivations, and actions” [19, p. 1]. Greenwashing involves policies or practices that appear environmentally friendly but have little meaningful impact, and can include promises about the future (“future-washing” per Hill et al., 2025 [20]), particularly when there is no clear effort to achieve such a promise, such as some have deemed to be the case regarding JBS’s net-zero pledge [2,21]. Greenwashing by highly polluting industries is more concerning than greenwashing by less polluting industries because greenwashing can lead consumers and policymakers to believe these polluting industries are more environmentally friendly than they are, and may allow companies to continue harmful practices that undermine climate mitigation and sustainability goals (e.g., national climate commitments) [19]. The effects of greenwashing may also translate to continued support by investors, consumers, governments, corporate customers, and the public [22].

Here, we examined the largest global meat and dairy companies’ environmental claims, the proportion of these claims that were focused on climate-related issues, the proportion that included promises about future company efforts, including net-zero climate-related pledges, and the number of claims for which companies provided evidence, including scholarly literature. We then systematically assessed these environmental claims using the Nemes et al. framework [21] to distinguish genuine efforts from greenwashing.

II. Methods

We used publicly available materials related to sustainability for the world’s 35 largest meat and dairy companies [23]. Two companies were excluded: Dean Foods, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019 and was acquired by Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) in 2020, and Guangdong Wens Foodstuff Group Co., Ltd., a pork producer in China, because it did not have a sustainability report or publicly available information in English. We used the most recently published sustainability reports (spanning 2021–2024) for 28 companies and the company websites for the five companies that did not publish a sustainability report as our primary data sources (see S1 Data). Data was collected exclusively from publicly available company websites (see SM).

Each environmental claim was recorded and manually coded; no AI tools were used in this study. We categorized each claim as climate-related or not. Environmental claims encompass environmental benefits or activities (e.g., land restoration to protect biodiversity). Climate-related claims refer to climate-specific activities or impacts that involve GHG emissions (e.g., land restoration to capture carbon) or diverse adaptation and mitigation actions. Examples of climate-related claims include transitioning to renewable energy in operations, improving operational efficiencies, or developing methane-suppressing feed additives. Environmental claims that were not climate-related, or at least not primarily so, included activities such as restoring land to promote biodiversity, reducing plastic packaging, or minimizing food waste. Non-environmental claims in sustainability reports (e.g., employee health and safety, animal health, nutrition) were excluded from the analysis. For claims with supporting evidence, we categorized the kind of evidence provided (e.g., from a scholarly article, a multi-stakeholder initiative, a government agency, another company, an industry organization or trade group, an intergovernmental body, a non-governmental organization (NGO), an academic institution, or undefined). For scholarly articles, the citations were documented.

Claims not supported with scholarly evidence were further evaluated using the framework developed by Nemes et al. [21], which offers a structured approach (with 13 sub-categories) for identifying and categorizing greenwashing in corporate social sustainability communications. We excluded some of the Nemes et al. [21] questions that were not relevant to our materials, such as those referring to marketing budgets and visual symbols. Justifications were provided for both greenwashing and non-greenwashing classifications.

Inter-coder reliability was assessed in two phases, after the first author classified all environmental claims. Another coder (JJ) evaluated a subset of claims (62 or ~5%) and found one that she did not classify as environmental, which was removed from the analysis. There was 100% agreement that the remaining 61 claims constituted ‘greenwashing’, but there was low agreement among coders regarding the sub-categories of greenwashing (e.g., vagueness, empty claims, etc.) per Nemes et al. [21]. As a result, the authors do not report the results of the sub-categories of greenwashing. A separate inter-coder reliability analysis of an additional 62 claims (~5%) to designate future- vs. non-future oriented claims (which included net-zero pledges) resulted in 91% agreement. Four claims were reclassified as ‘future-oriented’ on the basis of this disagreement.

III. Results

Future promises, including net-zero pledges

Of the 1,233 claims, 38% (467) were promises about the future, and 73% (343) of these future-oriented claims were climate-related. The greatest number of future promises were made by dairy-based companies Nestlé (55) and Danone (49), followed by meat-based companies Danish Crown (34), Cargill (26), and Marfrig (26).

Of the 33 companies, 17 (52%) made a net-zero or climate-neutrality commitment, with all except Dairy Farmers of America setting specific target years (Table 1). Net-zero commitments varied significantly in coverage and target year for achievement, although ten companies set targets for 2050. For companies that did not make explicit net-zero commitments, nine mentioned other climate goals, such as taking steps to measure or reduce Scope 1 (direct emissions from a company’s own operations), Scope 2 (indirect emissions from energy use), and Scope 3 (all other indirect emissions across the value chain, such as deforestation) emissions. The dairy companies made stronger climate commitments with more companies setting net-zero targets and addressing all emissions. Patterns in other sectors suggest that ownership may play a role in net-zero: in a sample of 69 U.S. oil companies, net-zero commitments were more common specifically in cases when BlackRock held some ownership [28]. Consistent with this pattern, BlackRock owns shares in nine of the 17 meat and dairy companies with net-zero commitments in our sample (S1 Data).

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Table 1. Net-zero targets by each of the 33 meat and dairy companies categorized by scope and target year. Seventeen companies have made some net-zero commitment and 16 have not. Some companies made other specific near-term climate commitments, such as “30% Scope 3 emission reductions per kg of milk and whey by 2030” [27, p. 34] (S1 Data).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000773.t001

Evidence for claims

Of all 1,233 environmental claims, 356 (29%) offered supporting evidence (see S1 Data for types of supporting evidence cited). More than half (52%) of these 356 claims referenced an internal pilot program or case study. Three claims made by three different companies—Fonterra, California Dairies, Inc., and Perdue—referenced scholarly literature, with two of the three studies classified as climate-related and two of the three studies published in journals closely aligned with the agriculture industry (Table 2). More than two-thirds of environmental claims lacked any evidence, making it difficult to assess their credibility.

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Table 2. Claims with supporting scholarly literature. Of the 1,233 environmental claims, three were supported by scholarly literature.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000773.t002

Prevalence of greenwashing

Out of the 1,233 environmental claims, 1,213 (98%) could be classified as containing indicators of greenwashing using the Nemes et al. framework [21].

There was a large disparity in the number of claims made by companies. Part of the reason for that is that the volume of available material varied widely. Five companies, ABP, Coren Group, Koch Foods, National Beef Company, and New Hope Group, did not publish a report at all. Some, such as California Dairies and Tönnies Lebensmittel, published relatively brief sustainability reports of 20 pages each (in contrast, the report FrieslandCampina was 281 pages long, as documented in S1 Data). In addition to annual reports, Nestlé and Danone published supplemental environmental-focused reports alongside their annual sustainability reports, offering a significantly larger volume of claims to assess. However, not all of it can be explained by the number of pages of sustainability material produced; Vion Food Group’s report was 176 pages long, but they made relatively few environmental claims (Fig 1). Another factor in the disparity in the number of claims by company is that different companies prioritize the environment in different ways. For instance, JBS and Marfrig dedicated approximately 32% of their reports to environmental topics, while Tyson’s report was relatively short (54 pages) and allocated only 13% to environmental issues.

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Fig 1. Environmental claims, climate-related and greenwashing.

Number of environmental claims made by the 33 largest meat and dairy companies, broken down into climate-related and non-climate-related claims, alongside the number of those environmental claims that were classified as greenwashing.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000773.g001

Out of the 1,233 environmental claims, 20 (<2%) did not contain indicators of greenwashing (S1 Data). These claims were generally neutral and verifiable, such as “in the United States alone, 30–40% of food produced is never consumed” [32, p. 36], a statement supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) [33]. Rather than emphasizing specific initiatives, these claims often focused on broader market, industry, or company trends.

IV. Discussion

The most recent sustainability reports and websites (2021–2024) for the 33 largest meat and dairy companies showed that they made more than 1,000 environmental claims. While this sector has many environmental impacts (e.g., Steinfeld et al. 2006 [5]), the issue that seems to most concern the companies is climate change; roughly two-thirds of environmental claims could be classified as climate-related.

Given that companies made so many environmental claims in their sustainability reports and websites, we also performed a cursory examination of capital expenditures (CAPEX) provided in the same sources. Of the 33 meat and dairy companies, 12 provided assigned monetary values for specific environmental or climate-related investments that totalled USD $4.82 billion in reported CAPEX, the majority of which was Nestlé’s commitment of approximately USD $4.0 billion “toward net-zero initiatives” (S1 Data). Around USD $4.40 billion (91%) of total CAPEX appeared to be allocated to climate-related initiatives, with Nestlé’s USD $4.0 billion making up the majority of expenditures. Ten of the 12 companies with disclosed CAPEX are among the 17 companies that have made net-zero commitments, including BRF, California Dairies, Danish Crown, Danone, Fonterra, JBS, Minerva, Nestlé, Saputo, and Vion Food Group (Table 1). The other 21 companies provided qualitative descriptions, combined CAPEX values, operational spending, grants, or philanthropic activities. Some companies made high-level, aspirational statements about the environment without detailing specific initiatives (e.g., Koch Foods Sustainability in Action Program “as proof of our commitment to sustainability” [34]). Four of the highest emitting companies (Le Groupe Lactalis, Tyson, Arla Foods, and FrieslandCampina) according to a 2022/2023 analysis [13] have made net-zero commitments but did not disclose CAPEX for sustainability or climate-related initiatives.

More than one-third of environmental claims (467 total) were future promises for which the companies almost never laid out plans for implementation and which rarely get evaluated for their practicality. Companies provided supporting evidence for nearly one-third (29%) of environmental claims, but provided scholarly scientific evidence to support only three claims. We also examined each of these 1,233 claims using the Nemes et al. [21] greenwashing framework and found that 98% (1,213) could be categorized as greenwashing. The common use of vague language (e.g., ‘sustainable food producer’) and limited information surrounding how emissions are being measured (e.g., ‘data-driven approach’) call into question the credibility of these claims. Rather than pursuing transformative change, many companies appear to prioritize minor efficiency gains and heavily publicize small-scale or pilot initiatives that do little to impact the broader environmental footprint of animal agriculture. These findings indicate that climate change now functions as the primary lens through which meat and dairy companies present “sustainability” and other environmental issues are relatively peripheral.

As of September 2020, just four of the largest 35 meat and dairy companies had made an explicit net-zero commitment [10]. Here we find that 17 of the 33 largest meat and dairy companies have now made a net-zero or equivalent commitment (Fig 1). Yet many companies that have made net-zero commitments provided little evidence on how they plan to achieve it [e.g., 35]. A study that looked into the net-zero pledges of BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell found no plans to reduce or phase out the production and sales of hydrocarbons and instead found that these companies were planning to rely on offsets to achieve net-zero emissions [36]. Likewise, meat and dairy companies appear to have no scalable ways to end their emissions, and their net-zero plans, when discussed, similarly rely on carbon offsets to achieve the stated goals. They also do little to nothing to address the other forms of pollution from meat and dairy production.

JBS and Tyson Foods set a net-zero target of 2040 and 2050, respectively. Both companies opt for what Trencher et al. [36] refer to as ‘conservative pathways’, which make limited efforts to shift away from emissions-intensive systems as opposed to ‘transformative pathways’, whereby companies would cut emissions by reducing reliance on such systems. Tyson [37] framed their net-zero commitment as one that “continually aspire[s] to achieve net-zero emissions.” JBS [38] included a footnote to its net-zero commitment noting that “whether the company is successful in achieving this very ambitious goal will depend on numerous factors outside of the company’s control.” That does not stop JBS from having an entire website dedicated to net zero that leans on the reputations of the NGOs and universities JBS funds [35,38], including Colorado State University’s AgNext program, which is directed by a former sustainability executive for JBS [39]. As with oil and gas companies, JBS and Tyson continue to expand operations. In 2022, Tyson opened two new facilities and announced a $200 million expansion of its Amarillo, Texas, plant [37, p. 22]. JBS opened two new facilities in Brazil and a plant in Missouri, as well as stating it would “pursue additional value-enhancing growth opportunities” [38, p. 5, p. 11].

In contrast to these ambitious plans to grow production, the climate initiatives that companies described in detail were generally small-scale, confined to local sites, or existed only in pilot form. These initiatives, which may reduce emissions to a certain degree, rarely cover a significant portion of a company’s total operations. For example, Arla Foods, the world’s fourth-largest dairy company and a cooperative of over 12,700 farmers, launched a “regenerative agriculture pilot” on 24 farms, representing just 0.0019% of its total global operations [27]. Arla Foods also reported “installing solar panels on the roof of a cheese packaging site in Oswestry, UK, which can cover 12% of the site’s annual electricity needs” [27, p. 37]. As one of the world’s largest dairy companies operating in over 32 countries [27], such a narrow, site-specific practice is small relative to the scale of its overall environmental footprint. Several claims referenced technologies that have yet to be implemented at scale, such as JBS’s commitment to reduce emissions by “incorporating high-quality forages and feed additives” [38] and Fonterra’s partnership with genetics companies to “breed low methane emitting cows” [29]. These efforts may give the illusion of progress while failing to address the primary source of emissions.

The trivial and/or small-scale nature of claims was not just related to climate. For example, NH Foods’ reduction in “the width of the tape used” for sausage products, “from 18mm to 15mm” [40, p. 16], likely offers negligible environmental benefit and applies to just one of many products the company manufactures (see S1 Data for specific claim). Similarly, Hormel Foods’ addition of the ‘How2Recycle’ logo to 326 products [41] does not appear to equate to substantial, meaningful benefits (e.g., [42,43].

The degrees of greenwashing revealed by this research may have legal implications, particularly in the U.S., where ‘commercial speech’ (such as these reports) is held to different legal standards than ‘political speech’ (which includes lobbying), for which there is little legal recourse [44]. In 2023, California passed new emissions reporting policies for large public and private companies doing business in the state [45]. Part of the reason for the lawsuit filed in 2024 by the New York Attorney General against JBS was the company’s failure to provide a transparent and feasible pathway to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040 [2]. In addition to the lawsuit against JBS, cases involving misleading advertising have been or are being pursued against Danish Crown [46], Tyson [37], Arla Foods [27], and Fonterra [29].

The Nemes et al. framework [21] was a valuable tool for identifying greenwashing, but there were several shortcomings. First, it was not able to account for differences in the scope or impact of claims. For example, China Yurun’s claim to “provide microwaves in the cafeteria to encourage employees to bring their own lunch,” [47, p. 49] is not equivalent in terms of scope or impact to JBS’s claim to “capture and eliminate the majority of GHG emissions at the Brooks, Alberta, beef facility” [35]. Second, Nemes et al. [21] does not account for the reliability or scientific credibility of the claims based on the information provided by the companies. Without a way to evaluate the evidence supporting a claim, it may be difficult to determine how genuine or misleading that claim may be. Third, Nemes et al. [21] did not distinguish between present-day actions and future commitments, although a later version of the framework added a category called “future-washing” under the ‘empty claims’ category [20]. Finally, Nemes et al. [21] relied on qualitative assessments that are highly subjective, particularly for the subcategories of greenwashing, and led to inconsistent evaluations across users.

In future research, the findings we present here could be corroborated by incorporating surveys or individual interviews with producers and consumers, which could provide greater insight into how and why environmental claims are made and how they are understood. In addition, disaggregating claims by geographic region may also provide insights into how climate messaging varies geographically with differing regulatory frameworks.

By no means are promises, unverifiable claims, or greenwashing unique to the meat and dairy industry. Similar activities are common across all kinds of companies and sectors [e.g., 19]. The animal-free fashion company, Stella McCartney, for instance, sells a handbag with “an innovative and environmentally friendly coating that actively sequesters NO2 and purifies the air” [48]—a claim that could also be classified as greenwashing. The problem in the meat and dairy case is that greenwashing activities extend both the social and financial license to operate in a disproportionately polluting sector relative to other possible foods. Sustainability reporting strengthens public perception and can boost a company’s image, making it more attractive to investors [49]. JBS, for example, raised $1 billion through sustainability-linked bonds linked to its net-zero pledge [35]. Just as the fossil fuel industry has used greenwashing over the last several decades to delay meaningful climate action (e.g., [50]), the meat and dairy industry may also be using these empty claims to delay climate action with even less time to spare.

Supporting information