Ben & Jerry’s: Carbon reduction goal

Planning carbon reductions for 2050

Famous as a global ice cream company, Ben & Jerry's is also known for its formidable environmental and social justice mission. With scientists arguing forcefully for significant reductions in carbon emissions by 2050 to limit global warming to 2°C, the company knew that it needed a bold approach to support its vision of climate justice. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Unilever, the company is pursuing an ambitious strategy that includes investing in renewable energy, putting a price on carbon, working throughout its value chain, and activating citizens around the world to engage their governments in the conversation.

Pure Strategies helped Ben & Jerry's establish and plan to implement their goal through three main tasks: garnering corporate alignment on a goal, developing a portfolio of mitigation projects, and advising on project implementation.

Corporate alignment on a science-based greenhouse gas (GHG) goal

Pure Strategies initially focused on helping Ben & Jerry's achieve internal alignment on the need for a carbon goal that would extend to 2050 and encompass the entire value chain. Ben & Jerry's had commissioned a carbon footprint of a pint of ice cream from seed to spoon, giving the company a good understanding of the daunting challenge ahead. The study revealed that farm impacts played the largest role, with cow burps and manure accounting for 41 percent of the carbon footprint. The crops grown to feed the cows, other ingredients in the ice cream, transportation, and manufacturing all contributed significantly as well. Adding to the challenge, Ben & Jerry's projected significant revenue growth and needed to find a way to decouple greenhouse gas emissions from pint sales.

Pure Strategies' work included advising the company on how to set a long-term goal consistent with the scientific community's analysis of needed global greenhouse gas reductions. Consulting both internally in the business and externally with NGO stakeholders, Pure Strategies also created interim targets that included a 20% reduction in GHG intensity in just six years. To fund this work, Ben & Jerry's set an internal price on every ton of carbon produced across the business.

Developing a detailed implementation plan

To help the company move forward with project and program investments, Pure Strategies developed a portfolio of projects for Ben & Jerry's to prioritize. These projects, based on available technology implementable in the short- and medium-term, provided Ben & Jerry's with estimates of how each project could contribute to the overall goal.

With the portfolio insights, Ben & Jerry's initiated several emissions reduction projects including planning renewables and efficiency upgrades in manufacturing, accelerating logistics efficiency efforts, and seeking out energy efficiency opportunities at franchises. The company also introduced its first vegan ice creams, with fewer life cycle GHG impacts than dairy ice cream.

Working down on the farm

Ben & Jerry's tasked Pure Strategies with finding a means to measure farm-related GHG emissions, both in crop production and from the cows and their manure. We selected the COMET-farm tool developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Colorado State University. The Ben & Jerry's Caring Dairy program has long paid a premium to farmers for adopting sustainable farming practices. With COMET, producers can better manage the carbon footprint reductions they gain from improved herd management, sustainable tilling practices, crop rotation, cover cropping and other practices.

Future priorities that Ben & Jerry's will address include partnering with other ingredient suppliers, driving reductions in waste, and engaging the packaging supply chain. Pure Strategies is also helping the company develop its measurement and tracking system.

Pure Strategies' support of Ben & Jerry's environmental and social mission has been both strategic and technically focused. The effort helps provide the company with authentic action that complements its climate activism efforts, which range from lobbying to inspiring citizen engagement around the globe. It will require tremendous effort to turn the tide on mankind's greatest challenge, and it bodes well that companies such as Ben & Jerry's are leading the way.

Learn more about Pure Strategies' Climate Strategy expertise here. Learn more about Ben & Jerry's delicious ice cream here.