Jeff Simmons, CEO of animal health company Elanco, wants you to know something: You don’t have to stop eating burgers to save the planet. And you shouldn’t blame cows for climate change, either. In his view, “climate-neutral farming” is possible, and that would mean no one would need to give up meat and farms could continue to have just as many animals as ever.
When I spoke to Simmons a while back on the phone, his analysis surprised me. There are many conceivable scenarios for how the agrifood industry could adapt to increased environmental scrutiny. But I’ll readily admit that this one—no change in the scale or intensity of animal farming—was not one I had considered. Is it possible?
Elanco, a multibillion-dollar spin-off of Eli Lilly and the fourth-largest animal health company in the world, embraces technology to solve adverse climate impacts from agriculture. To succeed, “the cow is the how,” Simmons told me on a Zoom call. New food supplements and other innovations can reduce methane emissions from cows by up to 50%, he said.
I’ll spare you the technicalities of exactly how it works. But essentially, the idea is that if you change what goes into cows, bulls, and other farm animals, you can also affect what comes out of them.
In fact, it’s not just an idea: Before the end of the year, Elanco and Nestlé plan to roll out new food supplements in California designed to lead to emissions reductions (albeit modest ones of a few percent), Simmons said. In Europe, even more effective food supplements from Dutch company DSM with reductions of up to 35% in emissions are already on the market.
With these and other techniques, Simmons expects to eliminate the need to shrink meat consumption to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change. And that’s not just good, but necessary, he says, because consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere simply aren’t getting rid of animal proteins from their diet. “Changing the diet is not where energy needs to go,” he said. “It’s not going to happen.”
Simmons is likely right. The only continent where total meat production has stopped growing in recent decades is Europe—and only as population growth stopped there. Everywhere else in the world, including the U.S., Latin America, Asia, and Africa, more meat is produced than ever before, despite the rise of plant-based alternatives.
To me, two questions remain open before betting the farm on climate-neutral agriculture.
The first is whether true climate-neutral farming is a real possibility and not just a promise. Despite the promises of methane reductions that Simmons touts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that methane in the atmosphere had its fourth-highest annual increase in 2022. We’re far from climate-neutral farming, then, at least on a global scale.
The second is whether climate is too narrow a focus. At the conferences I’ve attended recently, more and more attention is going to a broader nature agenda beyond climate and carbon. Taking that wider lens, many issues with meat production remain, Greenpeace says. Those issues include the effects on deforestation and wildlife, particularly in South America, and the risk of more zoonotic diseases spreading, such as SARS or COVID-19.
But Elanco’s strategy is based not only on protecting the climate but also on the premise of continued agricultural sector growth. Yet volume growth in the sector could end, whether because of preferences, rules, or planetary boundaries. In that case, continued growth for Elanco would depend more on the quality and margins of its offerings.
I did, however, appreciate Simmons's approach to climate action. Although many Elanco customers—farmers—come from America’s heartland, and their political agenda may well be very different from that of climate pioneers on the coasts, that hasn’t stopped Simmons from working towards a climate agenda.
“I stand here to say, climate-neutral farming is possible, and farms today prove that it is possible and is profitable,” he told me. His one caveat: “Sustainability is only sustainable if it is profitable.” It is also the best argument to bring his customers on board.
Separately, I'll be interviewing Joe Preston, CEO of sportswear company New Balance Athletics, live this Saturday in New York. We'll talk about the company's purpose, its social impact (including sponsorship of the New York City Marathon, which takes place the next day), and its sustainability journey. The interview is live on Zoom at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. You can sign up here.
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Peter Vanham
Executive Editor, Fortune
peter.vanham@fortune.com
This edition of Impact Report was edited by Holly Ojalvo.
