ESG targets (covering the environment, social responsibility and governance) and, more specifically, sustainability have been front and centre among large agrifood companies’ communication over the past years. Achieving “net zero” by 2050 was mentioned by almost all companies with strong intermediary targets for 2030. But now, many agrifood businesses are tuning down their ambitions. Is it only temporary? and what could be the long-term impact?

What’s happening?

First, let’s start with some recent examples of what we are talking about and why it matters:

• Coca-Cola dropped its pledge to sell 25% of its beverages in reusable packaging by 2030. At the same time, it revised its emissions targets to make them less ambitious.
• Nestlé and Unilever, once vocal about reaching “100% recyclable” packaging, are now aiming for “designs intended to be recyclable”.
• Kraft Heinz and Walmart removed climate commitments from their websites, possibly due to rising US political backlash against ESG language.
• ADM pledged to stick to its climate goals: it is quite telling that it is now newsworthy that a large company announcing that it was not scaling back its environmental targets

We observe a growing geographical divergence. US companies are clearly retreating from their goals, while European players are more constrained by regulation and consumer expectations.

Why are so many companies moving away from their own goals?

In our analysis, there are two core reasons explaining this move away from sustainability goals:

1. Anti-ESG political pressures: in the US, ESG has become a lightning rod for many politicians. ESG policies are now widely seen as a tool to impose on companies and consumers a worldview they don’t share. This can explain why so many companies are much less talking about their goals.
2. Current economic pressures and an inability to create value from sustainability actions: when companies invest in environmentally friendly products (like plant-based foods) or low-carbon emitting practices along their supply chain, the rewards are far from obvious. Consumers are not ready yet to pay more for more sustainable products. Sometimes, experimenting with climate-friendly actions can even lead to adverse effects. Also, some companies have made claims without any action plan to enforce them. So, they are pretty happy to ditch these claims now.
3. A reality check on the innovations that should solve the problem from new agricultural practices (notably regenerative agriculture) to bioinputs to sustainable ingredients (notably alternative proteins): most of these solutions are not ready yet, and more importantly, it is not yet clear how to finance their scale up.o

What’s next, and what is the long-term impact?

We believe this isn’t the end for sustainability concerns in food, far from it. And it may not even be a pause. Indeed, a growing number of companies are simply engaging in “greenhushing,” where they continue sustainable practices but choose not to publicise them. In the long-term, the current move away from sustainability goals shouldn’t be too damaging if we consider that the companies that were so fast to ditch their sustainability goals weren’t probably highly engaged.

What we expect now is:

• A move towards substance rather than slogans with less bold promises and more actions. For example, we have observed a surge in incentives backed by large companies (such as Mars and Cargill) to help thousands of farmers move to more regenerative agricultural practices.
• Scale-up efforts: as the long-term cost of keeping up with the current food system increases, the incentive to create more sustainable alternatives increases. This has been well-understood by innovators and investors who are betting billions on scaling up solutions such as methane blockers and bioinputs.
• Regulator efforts creating incentives: this is maybe the most complicated part, but without financial incentives (such as a carbon tax on meat and dairy products) used to finance innovations and support farmers’ transition, making our food system greener will take far too much time.

👉 If you are curious about the technologies and trends that could help move agrifood sustainability forward, you should look at our 2025 report on AgriFoodTech trends.