COP28 recap for agrifood leaders

1. Food and ag a key topic on the COP28 agenda

Spotlight on Food and Ag?

COP28 kicked off with the announcement of over 130 countries signing the Leaders Declaration on Food Systems, Agriculture and Climate Action on the first day of the COP28 (1 December). It marked national commitments to cut carbon emissions in the global food system. Despite what this COP delivered (and didn’t deliver) [see Paul Polman’s remarks on the topic], I see it as a note of progress, as we are at last putting agriculture and the food industry, fundamentally linked to the livelihoods of millions of people around the world, into its rightful place on the global agenda.

It means that agriculture has entered the spotlight, including the benefits and responsibilities it implies. I do want to acknowledge a concern that adding agriculture to the agenda could potentially detract from the spotlight rightfully turned to phasing out fossil fuels. I personally, do not believe that was the case. I perceived it as the spotlight getting wider to include our industry.?

Farmers have a seat at the table

This addition to the agenda means a stronger seat for agriculture and food leaders at the negotiations table, including farmers. It was great to see the global farmer constituency represented in the Blue Zone of the COP28. For more details on their agenda, including bringing farmer perspectives, and inclusion of farmers as important constituents, see the reflections from Shari Roger Fidler, farmer and the President and CEO of the Farm Foundation here. I hope to see the momentum on agrifood action continue and see more farmers represented at the future COP’s to support and drive it.

Building the momentum

Inclusion of agriculture on the agenda so prominently also had a catalyzing effect on the industry and public sector representatives who attended the COP28. We were more coordinated, aligned, and as a result, I believe we will be able to achieve more together in the months and years to come. The impact of the COP alignment will be truly felt in industry leaders bringing it to their organizations, partners and governments, catalyzing actions.

2. Driving resilience by financing and operationalizing the transition to regen ag

Resilience financing

Climate risk is the biggest financial risk to the economy in the years to come.

Resilience is a common outcome we must be driving toward, balancing both mitigation and adaptation. Climate-smart farming or regenerative agriculture builds resilience both for soil health but equally for the nature and communities it touches.

The topic of “resilience” permeated the COP28 discussions. It is clearly seen as an outcome that indicates both financial and nature-based health that we should strive to achieve as a result of the economic transformation between now and 2030.?

Public sector funding

Resilience is about financial outcomes, and thus capital flows, the capital that needs to be invested into the transition, and instead may currently be used to finance “conventional” industry. Every year, we have a chance of directing $600-700B of government subsidies globally to build a more resilient and sustainable food system. World Bank and WRI wrote about this and the benefits of shifting agriculture subsidies to restore and protect the land. As an example, the $3.1B Climate Smart Commodities (CSC) program in the US is a very promising sign of a much needed change, and needs to be complimented with the necessary changes to the federal insurance and the Farm Bill to enable the scaling of climate resilient food system?

Private sector funding

The required capital for transition is on the order of trillions, and can not come from one place, but needs to come from all relevant sources. And whilst we see the leaders in the agrifood sector, including Nestle, PepsiCo, Mars, Unilever, Cargill, Danone, General Mills, and many others making significant commitments to finance the transition to regenerative agriculture and drive nature-positive outcomes, they alone can not foot the transition bill. In addition to aforementioned government subsidies, the insurance and banking sector need to also find a path to meaningfully participating in providing incentives for transition.?

Operationalizing the business transformation

Operationalizing the transition also means driving a business transformation that results in integrating the new strategy to make investments aligned with Net-Zero goals across the business. For an agrifood company, this would mean including procurement, risk, financial and business/operations officers alongside the sustainability executives and the CEO into driving this transformation. More often, we hear that the companies are working to incorporate regenerative sourcing or regenerative commodities into their procurement contracts, and are building models to asset the cost curves of the transition that regularly indicate that starting now is cheaper than catching up later.

3. Private sector role in leading the charge on? transformation

Aggregating the demand It was clear at the COP28 that the private sector is charting the path for a net-zero transformation in the agriculture and food industry. Prime examples of these were the launch of World Economic Forum First Movers Coalition for Food, aimed at aggregating market demand for sustainably produced and low-emission agricultural commodities. In line with the goal to operationalize the transition, this coalition represents a combined procurement commitment with an estimated value of $10-$20 billion by 2030 from 20 leading food companies.

Driving transparency, alignment and financing

WBCSD, of which Regrow and many of our industry partners are members, has also launched the COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes: accelerating the transition. What is significant about it is that being the flagship initiative led by the COP28 presidency and the BCG, and supported by UN High Level Climate Champions, is that the work to progress this agenda will be carried out by future COP’s too. The agenda aims to amplify existing efforts and new commitments to transition large agricultural landscapes to regenerative landscapes by 2030 by fostering transparency, such as alignment on the outcome metrics, and publicly disclosing the progress of initiatives, as well as acceleration of partnerships and public private collaborations, and increasing access to financing.

Attention to big emission sources

The progress in private sector actions is not limited to industry-wide initiatives. It’s great to see sub-sector specific initiatives and commitments too, such as the launch of Dairy Methane Action Agenda (DMAA) led by EDF and 6 leading global food brands, including several Regrow partners. According to EDF, methane pollution from all sources in 2023 will cause more warming in the decade ahead than all the carbon dioxide from fossil fuels burned this year, hence the importance of this initiative to achieve near-term progress in fighting climate change.The companies supporting DMAA (Bel Group, Danone, General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Lactalis USA, and Nestlé) are committing to help reduce and publicly disclose the methane emissions in their dairy supply chains. Another strong example of driving action, collaboration and transparency.

Maturing the metrics across climate and nature

The Regenerative Landscapes agenda is also supported by ongoing work in the Regenerative Agriculture Metrics workstream conducted by the WBCSD members, alongside similar work on metrics for climate and nature.?

Alignment on metrics, goals, commitments, as well as practical discussions on coordinating efforts and strategies on the ground is what is needed to unlock a greater scale of progress in the industry transition to a more resilient state in the near future.

Overall, whilst COP28 has not received an A+ mark across all climate goals put on its agenda, it undoubtedly signified increased momentum, alignment and action in the agrifood sector, providing us seat at the table, which comes with its responsibility and opportunities.

Let’s build on this momentum, and realize the unique climate opportunity for the agrifood industry!