World Wildlife Fund Sustainability Works

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.

Without fanfare, the global food system has reached peak land. Since 2000, the amount of land used for food production — both arable land for crops and pasture for livestock — has declined. While that seems to be good news for the environment, we are also still expanding food production into some areas at the expense of forests, grasslands, and wetlands.

Remarkably, since the amount of land that we farm began to decline, we have produced significantly more food. In fact, it is because we can meet global food needs using less land that we are able to decouple agricultural land use from food production. This trend can go much further and faster. Recognizing that today is Food, Agriculture, and Water Day at COP29, here is a way to make that happen.

For most of us, Thanksgiving is all about the food. And for those looking to have a more environmentally-friendly Thanksgiving this year, the number one thing we can do is take steps to value the food we’re serving. This starts with us recognizing all of the resources that go into producing our Thanksgiving meal (long before we purchase our ingredients at the supermarket), and it ends with us doing our part to make sure none of it goes to waste.

In the US Northern Great Plains, owners of 112 ranches are working with WWF to save one of the world’s last remaining grassland habitats. Multi-generational family ranchers across Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming are contributing to important conservation efforts to restore and preserve grasslands by implementing nature positive changes on their ranches. The work is being done through the Ranch Systems and Viability Planning (RSVP) network – a program that provides comprehensive training and support for ranchers to develop sustainable grazing management plans. Ranchers can apply to receive technical assistance, educational training, participate in ecological monitoring, and connect with peers through networking opportunities.

In 2022, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Triangle Associates released a study showcasing the transformative benefits of replacing traditional milk cartons with bulk milk dispensers in K-12 schools. This research demonstrated that such a switch can dramatically cut packaging and milk waste, reduce school expenses, and boost student nutrition by increasing milk consumption. To help schools make this change, WWF’s report detailed several real-world school examples, with both milk and cost savings data, and a Cost Savings Estimate Calculator for schools to model their own potential savings. Now, a recent pilot project in Washington State offers compelling new evidence that bulk milk dispensers could be a game changer when it comes to reducing food waste in school cafeterias across the country.

Each year, October 16 marks World Food Day. This year’s theme, Right to foods for a better life and a better future, perfectly summarizes why WWF works on food. Food is not a nice to have, it’s a must have. But access to food doesn’t always come easy for everyone, and of the food we do produce – 40% of it is lost or wasted. By 2050, we’ll have 9 billion people to feed. If we’re going to do that, we need to find ways to improve the efficiency and productivity of how we produce and source our food so we can ensure a healthy future for both people and the planet.

From transformative global solutions, to making small changes in the school cafeteria, to embracing seaweed as a food source, in celebration of World Food Day, here are 3 food-focused solutions to help us rewrite the future of food.

1. Curbing Environmental Destruction for Food Production: Codex Planetarius is a proposed system of minimum environmental performance standards to improve the sustainability of globally traded food and soft commodities. Codex aims to grow demand for globally traded food while minimizing the negative environmental consequences. Dive into this concept on WWF's Nature Breaking Podcast - listen here.

3. Turning Cafeterias into Classrooms: The traditional classroom is not the only place where learning takes place. Since 2017, WWF has been turning cafeterias across the US into classrooms –empowering students to understand and act on the environmental consequences of food waste, such as its impact on climate change, water use, and biodiversity loss. Food Waste Warriors incorporates hands-on learning and encourages students to be advocates for sustainable food practices in their schools and communities. Learn more about Food Waste Warriors here and check out what one school in Georgia has been up to in this recent segment from ABC News:

The global food system is complex, shaped by the unique cultures, traditions, and environmental contexts of different regions. The newly launched Great Food Puzzle report introduces a groundbreaking approach to addressing the biodiversity, climate, and health crises through sustainable food systems. Rather than promoting a one-size-fits-all solution, this report helps countries identify actions that can be adapted to their specific contexts. By creating a typology of six Food Systems Types, the Great Food Puzzle reveals high-impact solutions for each group of countries, considering both environmental and socioeconomic factors.

One of the report’s most compelling findings is the unrealized potential of public education on healthy and sustainable food consumption. Raising awareness and changing behaviors are universal challenges, and some of the most innovative examples of food system transformation are already occurring within schools.

Food systems are the number one threat to nature and a major contributor to biodiversity loss. Feeding a growing world population while protecting nature and reducing GHG emissions is the imperative of our time. While the challenges are universal, solutions must be tailored to local contexts, as food systems are deeply influenced by culture, heritage, and local context. This means that what works in one place may not be effective in another.

The Great Food Puzzle series adapts solutions to the unique needs of countries by clustering countries with similar socioeconomic and environmental factors. This classification helps identify key actions to drive the shift toward healthier and more sustainable food systems—offering an opportunity for countries to learn from each other and emulate the successes of peers. The US has a similar type of food system to that of the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan.

Investor interest in financing nature-based solutions is burgeoning, but given the $711 billion funding gap, you wouldn’t know it. With over half of the global GDP reliant on nature, and the global ambition to achieve goals set in the 2016 Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework, financing nature-based solutions is smart business. And yet, the sector struggles to secure the necessary investment to combat nature loss.

The overwhelming majority of capital allocated to climate and nature is directed toward energy, transport and infrastructure- food systems receive only 4%. Underinvestment in agriculture, especially in the transition of global food systems toward regenerative and nature-positive production practices, stands out given the sector’s profound impact on nature. Agricultural production and food systems are the main drivers of biodiversity loss, deforestation, conversion of natural habitats, and topsoil loss. They consume 70% of freshwater and generate one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

McDonald’s Corporation is planting trees in hedgerows on French farms, with a target of 230,000 trees by 2030. Why? This is one of the activities that companies can implement to reduce agriculture and forestry greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in their supply chains and count toward meeting their climate targets. All told, McDonald’s Corporation committed to reducing its forest, land, and agriculture emissions by 72% by 2050.

Other mitigation options for companies with food, agriculture, or forestry emissions include reducing emissions by halting deforestation and degradation, improving forest management, reducing agricultural emissions, and sequestering carbon in soil.

Businesses’ supply chains depend on climate and the services provided by nature. Companies with significant land-sector emissions are even more dependent than others, so they are strengthening their climate commitments to comprehensively include land emissions through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Since the SBTi began validating Forestry, Land, and Agriculture (FLAG) science-based targets last year, 83 companies have set targets to reduce their FLAG emissions and increase removals.¹

More ways companies are taking action to reduce FLAG emissions include: