Big business tells beef to stay on the carbon neutral chase

The now-controversial CN30 has been a hot topic at beef industry events this year but the clear message coming from the big food corporations buying Australian beef, the banks financing it and the governments legislating it is "good job, keep going on the chase for net emissions."

CN30 was launched in 2017 by Meat & Livestock Australia. A baseline year of 2005 was chosen to measure against as that aligns with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Modelling is showing that the interventions currently in place will not quite be enough to deliver CN30 - there will be a 17.3 mega tonne gap, albeit still representing a remarkable 88 per cent reduction in net emissions.

Scientists say it's likely Australian beef can be carbon neutral, just not by 2030.

It's producers who seem most critical of that shortfall, questioning whether CN30 has done more harm than good given it can't be delivered.

As such, the peak grassfed body Cattle Australia has called for CN30 to be replaced with a climate neutral target.

CA director David Foote, speaking at the 2024 Wagyu Edge conference in Cairns last week, said the industry took the position back in 2017 "not recognising the ramifications" but now had to "make sure we don't go out of business trying to achieve CN30."

He argued it was too ambitious, saying "no one else in the world was trying to achieve anything by 2030."

Director of the Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre, Professor Richard Eckard, disagreed.

He provided a list of those with carbon neutrality and reduced methane goals, many with some form of deadline by 2030.

These included New Zealand, three states in Brazil and California, along with companies like Cargill, Unilever, Nestle, Danone, Fonterra, Rabobank and NAB.

The latter two hold 50 per cent of Australia's agri debt market.

"In the discussion now that beef may not get to CN30, what is forgotten is that when it was announced there were a bunch of caveats - the right industry commitment, the right policy settings, new investment in research," Prof Eckard said.

"That investment caveat was four times what has actually been able to be leveraged so far.

"We will get there but not in the time frame."

In the meantime, CN30 was doing a brilliant job of telling beef customers the industry cared and was working on this issue they care so much about, say sustainability experts - many of them from corporations dealing closely with beef.

Senior manager of Environment, Social and Governance Advisory at Westpac NZ Ben Taylor, speaking at the 2024 Zanda McDonald Award Impact Summit in Queenstown in March, said the Australian red meat industry's CN30 was something that should be commended.

He said it wasn't set because it was easily achievable, but rather because it was indeed hard.

He drew on John F Kennedy's famous "We Choose to Walk on the Moon" speech, saying CN30 "served to organise and measure the best of our skills and energies."

Mr Taylor said there was no doubt bank agriculture customers very much wanted to transition to a low emissions economy and were looking to banks to help fund that.

Mandatory climate disclosure reporting regulation was coming in but the biggest driver was still the consumer of agri products, he said.

Simon Kenny, from fast food giant McDonald's, backed that.

McDonald's is the world's largest food service retailer, serving more than 70m people a day in 40,000 restaurants over 100 countries.

It buys 2pc of the world's beef.

Mr Kenny said 99pc of McDonald's emissions were scope 3. That is, they are the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by McDonald's.

"We recognise rapid acceleration of our efforts is needed to meet our 2030 sustainability goals," Mr Kenny said.

"A big piece of the puzzle for McDonald's is things like land use change and methane output."