
Traceable Beef for Climate and Conservation
- Date: 14 January 2025
- Author: MacKenzie Waro, WWF
While beef production is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and has the greatest average global emissions intensity per kilogram of meats, there are also opportunities for the beef system, including beef and feed producers, to improve their carbon footprint. Improving our ability to know where and how beef is produced and who along the value chain – from farm to retail -- is playing a part in incentivizing and implementing carbon footprint improvements can help better recognize and financially reward those making climate benefits happen. A new project is working to make this transparency and accountability happen.
World Wildlife Fund, in collaboration with FAI Farms and Standard Soil, have been awarded a two-year USDA Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) titled Traceable Beef for Climate and Conservation. In July, USDA announced it would invest $90 million in 53 CIG projects.
This two-year USDA CIG will develop and test an innovative framework that measures, tracks and allocates verified carbon outcomes across full beef value chains and validate the methodology through targeted implementation with producers. The primary scope includes Iowa and Oklahoma, but we are open to considering other producers if they meet the criteria.
The key innovation advanced in this project is the testing of a novel market mechanism called the beef emissions tracing and allocation (BETA) framework for producing beef products with verified quantitative carbon outcomes. The Framework will cover the full lifecycle footprint from pasture to feed yards to processors and by-products, which creates greater opportunity for producer recognition of and reward for sustainability improvements that benefit climate and nature. The Framework will be anchored in actual farm-level measurement and validated through targeted implementation culminating in a project report and publicly available methodology
The greatest value of the Framework is that it will provide companies buying beef products a mechanism for making credible claims of environmental performance in their supply chains. In so doing, it will allow beef and feed producers to access market incentives to adopt climate smart and nature positive practices and will spur the adoption of such practices.
The BETA Framework will provide an increased understanding of the economic benefits created when applying traceability and measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verifying (MMRV) alongside practice changes for enteric emissions via feed management/feed additives, grazing management and crop production.
Please reach out to MacKenzie Waro at [email protected] with any questions.
Read the USDA announcement here. Read the 2023 USDA CIG award recipients here.