CAPS - Climate Action through Product Sustainability in the Food System

Food systems need to transform for humanity to stay within planetary boundaries and achieve socially just and resilient societies.

Large food companies are part of the problem, yet progressive businesses can leverage impact by connecting to thousands of suppliers and customers and millions of consumers.

Private sector commitments to net-zero food systems is one of the most promising mechanisms to accelerate global climate action.

However, the capacity to realize these targets and validate them differ greatly, and few companies consider how climate ambitions influences other impacts (e.g. biodiversity loss) and how farmers are affected. This project aims to leverage the unrealized potential of food company sustainability commitments.

Specifically, we will: (i) improve data synthesis methods and measurements for bundles of environmental and social impacts, including climate, from different food commodities; (ii) offer guidance in how companies can be more transparent and improve their credibility in food sustainability data reporting and (iii) analyze up-and downstream approaches for translating sustainability data to action and the role of company sustainability targets for catalyzing a just food system transformation.

Collaboration with five large food companies representing the animal feed and food retail sectors, both subject to large Scope 3 emissions, together with a dialogue space for food systems actors will ensure validation and spread of the research findings.