CHALLENGE
How can a nutrition company become more resilient in a time of transformation?
For many across the food chain it is clear: climate change is disrupting global food production. It makes the transition to more sustainable, resilient food systems all the more important. Yet, where do you begin?
As a global nutrition company, Glanbia wants to support a resilient food system. Its operations are home to performance nutrition brands like Optimum Nutrition and Isopure, promising to deliver better nutrition for a better world. Sustainability and climate resilience have a large role to play in delivering this promise.
Glanbia acknowledged that it needed to analyse its climate risks and opportunities to focus its internal strategy where it could be most impactful. In addition, the company needed to disclose to stakeholders how it is tackling the climate challenge and is building on the opportunities of a Net Zero transition. Recognising the opportunity to go beyond compliance, Glanbia wanted to assess its impact on the climate as well as the climate’s impact on its business. Doing so would form the basis for a transition plan; one that would turn decarbonisation levers for the supply chain into clear action.
Climate reporting standards
Reporting on climate-related risks and opportunities has become a legal requirement or, at the very least, expected best practice. One of the most recognised climate reporting methodologies is the TCFD framework (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures). It forms the basis and has been built on by other disclosure initiatives or standards, including:
CDP: A voluntary framework for climate disclosures.
CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive): Rolled out by the EU in 2024, CSRD requires companies to report how sustainability issues impact their business and how their operations in turn affect people and planet – a unique principle called ‘double materiality’. What this means for businesses.
ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board): In 2023, the ISSB, which is part of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation, published its standards on sustainability-related disclosures. The standards aim to create a global baseline for sustainability reporting. Many jurisdictions are planning to adopt ISSB-based standard, including Canada, Singapore and the UK while others, including Brazil and Nigeria, have already adopted the standards.
SOLUTION
Delving into Glanbia’s climate risks and emission profile to inform a transition plan
A transition plan requires businesses to take a holistic approach. First, they need to have a clear overview of their carbon intensity alongside their risk exposure to address emissions hotspots and weak points. In the case of Glanbia, this meant looking at the company’s full value chain, particularly its dairy supply. Having worked with Glanbia since 2017, we:
Revised Glanbia’s carbon baseline with Scope 1, 2 and 3 footprinting following structural changes within the organisation. Since Scope 1 and 2 emissions only make up 1% of Glanbia’s emissions profile, calculations reiterated the urgency of reducing Scope 3 emissions and engaging with suppliers.
Broke down emissions by purchasing organisations, individual large-scale farms and products for better insights. Here, we determined the main forest, land and agriculture (FLAG) and non-FLAG emission sources, including purchased milk (FLAG) and packaging (non-FLAG) in line with the Science Based Targets initiative’s recommendations.
Built a product footprint tool. With this tool, Glanbia can calculate the carbon impact of its whey and plant-based products on an annual basis and report the results to customers, including some of the largest global brands. As brands look to report their product carbon footprints to end-consumers, the need for this type of carbon transparency grows.
Delved into Glanbia’s operations and business model to identify its climate risks, their likelihood, velocity and financial impact if left unaddressed. This covered physical risks from a changing climate (i.e., lower milk yields across the supply chain) as well as transition risks (i.e., new regulations around methane emissions).
Identified opportunities to reduce emissions in line with a 1.5C pathway and minimise climate risks. Since milk feeds into a large part of Glanbia’s footprint, we modelled the positive impact of commercially viable farm-by-farm interventions.1 The implementation of anaerobic digestors alongside methane-reducing feed additives, for example, would help suppliers across Idaho meet their portion of Glanbia’s science-based target.
Proposed a reduction roadmap with immediate and short-term initiatives and their associated costs. To decarbonise logistics, for example, Glanbia could optimise logistics routes and convert to battery-powered trucks. In tandem, a clear decarbonisation roadmap for suppliers in Idaho and climate performance criteria in procurement decisions can help reduce emissions from ingredients.
IMPACT
Making the financial business case for climate action
The deep insights into Glanbia’s risk profile, carbon footprint and opportunities to reduce emissions, empower the company to go beyond mere reporting. Instead, the insights have given Glanbia the building blocks for a transition plan and the costs required. Glanbia now has an opportunity to set the bar on decarbonising dairy as it begins to:
Gain a clearer picture of where emissions come from, allowing for more targeted action at farm-level and transportation.
Accelerate its climate action. The analyses have shifted climate action from a theoretical question to a roadmap that looks at the value chain’s efficiencies, emissions and how to reduce them.
Reassure internal stakeholders. Glanbia’s risk radar is more robust thanks to better data, meaning the company can disclose to executives, the board and investors how it plans to minimise these risks.
Partner with suppliers to demonstrate financially sustainable decisions. Following this work, Glanbia has developed tailored decarbonisation roadmaps for supplier farms.
The Carbon Trust have helped us navigate our sustainability journey since 2017. They were key partners in the development of our Better Nutrition Better World sustainability strategy. More recently, the Carbon Trust have helped us analyse risks and opportunities across our supply chain providing insights and strategic guidance on actions to futureproof Glanbia.
1 Using the results from Glanbia’s US partner, Newtrient, we reviewed the carbon intensity of individual farms across Idaho on Glanbia’s footprint. From this, we identified a set of interventions per farm.
