The food and beverage industry generates 29% of global greenhouse gases. Regulatory systems with deadlines beginning in 16-months are expanding rapidly in both the U.S. and across the globe, as consumer pressures also continue to intensify. But, the first step is a tedious carbon footprint calculation traditionally requiring 570+ pages of documentation, 2,000 hours, and $185,000 annually for a full-time hire and costly data sets on. Companies are often reporting manually, which means spending all year on calculation and analysis, and they will still need another specialist to make the data actionable.
Regulatory details:
In March of 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that all publicly traded companies would have 12-months to report on climate-related risks and opportunities, and 24-months to report on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. This is now tied up in litigation but expected to go through.
As of 4/2/24, sixteen U.S. states have implemented or scheduled an emissions trading system or carbon tax.
The EU has mandated climate-related financial reporting for all international companies with revenues over $100M that do business in EU territories, whether they are based there or not.
