98% of meat and dairy industry climate claims are greenwashing, study finds
Researchers reviewed 1,233 environmental claims from the world's biggest meat and dairy companies. Three were backed by peer-reviewed science.
Researchers checked the science. Almost none of it was there.
Shoppers, investors, and lawmakers all rely on these claims.
How the industry steered public health guidance, and now, climate narratives.
The annual ritual of corporate climate commitments.
Every year, the biggest meat and dairy companies in the world put out long reports about what they’re doing for the planet. The reports are full of pledges. Promises. Timelines. The word “sustainable” appears a lot.
Researchers checked the science. Almost none of it was there.
A new study in PLOS Climate checked whether any of it holds up.
Researchers at the University of Miami and New York University looked at 1,233 environmental claims from 33 of the world’s biggest meat and dairy companies, including Tyson, Smithfield, and Hormel. The claims came from company sustainability reports and websites published between 2021 and 2024.
Of those 1,233 claims, three were backed by peer-reviewed science. Three.
The rest, 98%, qualified as greenwashing.
What greenwashing looks like in practice.
Some were vague promises about the future with no clear plan to get there. Smithfield pledged to go “carbon negative by 2030.” Tyson aimed for “net-zero by 2050.” Nearly 38% of claims fell into this category: big goals, no roadmap.
Others were so small they barely counted. Hormel highlighted a thinner turkey tray. Another company added a recycling logo to its packaging. These are real examples from the study.
Shoppers, investors, and lawmakers all rely on these claims.
This matters because meat and dairy production accounts for roughly 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a huge share. And the reports these companies publish shape how shoppers choose products, how investors move money, and how lawmakers write rules. If the reports are mostly fiction, so are the decisions based on them.
Legal consequences are starting to arrive.
The timing is hard to ignore. Just months ago, Tyson settled a greenwashing lawsuit and agreed to stop calling its beef “net-zero” or “climate-smart” for the next five years. The company had been saying things the science didn’t support — and got caught.
How the industry steered public health guidance, and now, climate narratives.
This isn’t the first time the meat industry has shaped the story to suit its interests. It has a long track record of steering public health guidance to keep meat at the center of the American plate.
Now it’s doing the same thing with climate.
"Sustainable" means nothing without proof.
The next time a food company tells you its products are “sustainable,” ask one question: where’s the evidence? According to this study, the answer is almost never in the report.