IT_S BIG LIVESTOCK VERSUS THE PLANET (Feedback)

This report contains an executive summary. As requested, it is reproduced exactly below.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The climate impacts of the world's largest meat and dairy corporations - Big Livestock - could soon rival that of the oil giants, Big Oil. The five largest Big Livestock industry players - JBS, Tyson, Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America and Fonterra, companies many of us would struggle to name - together emit more greenhouse gases than ExxonMobil².

If industrial animal agriculture continues with its business-as-usual, the industry's growth will cause us to exceed our global emissions budget for 1.5°C. Within ten years, the livestock sector will account for almost half (49%) of the world's emissions budget for 1.5°C by 2030¹ᵃ and 80% by 2050²; requiring other sectors to slash their emissions beyond possible levels. To meet the steep and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions necessary to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, global livestock numbers need to fall, and substantially. We have reached 'peak livestock³'.

Peak livestock has existential implications for the small group of emissions-intensive agribusinesses that form the focus of this report. Headquartered in regions that produce and consume excessive quantities of animal proteins, these corporations are locking the world into a future dominated by ultra-high impact, industrially produced meat and dairy - with all the catastrophic threats this poses to our living Planet.

As the debate rages around meat, dairy and the climate, the transnational corporations that breed, grow, slaughter and process livestock face little scrutiny over their operations. Fuelled by staggering subsidies, enabling regulators and an extractive financial sector, Big Livestock dominates key markets, driving global consumption through cheap exports and by displacing smaller producers. Highly opaque and relentlessly controversial, these companies are prime drivers of the three biggest global challenges of our time: antibiotic resistance, biodiversity loss, and climate breakdown. Already these corporations have had huge impacts on the communities and ecologies where they operate, from factory farms polluting water in Iowa, to beef companies driving deforestation in the Amazon.

Like other globalised sectors, Big Livestock relies on the financial, moral and political backing of thousands of institutional investors and creditors around the world: university endowments, sovereign wealth funds, banks, asset managers and public pensions. High street names such as Barclays, HSBC and Santander are among the banks financing the expansion of some of the most destructive meat companiesᵇ. Universities that have banned beef on campus, continue to fund controversial beef giants such as JBS and Marfrig through their endowmentsᵇ. And investment behemoths such as Blackrock, State Street and Vanguard continue to pour fuel on the flames of the Amazon fires by investing, again and again, in companies linked to deforestation⁵.

The evidence is clear: Big Livestock, like Big Oil, is on the wrong side of history.

By highlighting the analogies between these two destructive industries, this report makes a case for the end of industrial animal agriculture. Drawing inspiration from the fossil fuel divestment movement, it emphasises the structural incompatibility of Big Livestock's business model and the imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emission. We call for broad, coordinated civil society action targeting the financial fodder that feeds Big Livestock.

a And 37% of the emissions budget for 2°C by 2030
b Forthcoming research from Feedback