As U.S. Firms Back Off Climate Targets, Olive Oil Companies Stay the Course

Summary

Since President Trump’s re-elec­tion, U.S. multi­na­tion­als have removed cli­mate change ref­er­ences and rolled back net-zero tar­gets, with Walmart down­play­ing its pre­vi­ous com­mit­ment. However, com­pa­nies like Pompeian and California Olive Ranch have main­tained their sus­tain­abil­ity com­mit­ments, with COR focus­ing on regen­er­a­tive farm­ing prac­tices to reduce emis­sions and improve bio­di­ver­sity.

Since President Donald J. Trump’s re-elec­tion in November, United States-based multi­na­tion­als have removed ref­er­ences to cli­mate change and sus­tain­abil­ity from their web­sites and rolled back net-zero tar­gets.

According to an analy­sis by the Financial Times, Walmart, one of the largest olive oil retail­ers in the U.S., removed a sec­tion from its web­site where the com­pany said it was ​“deeply com­mit­ted to address­ing cli­mate change.”

Before it was revised in December, Walmart called cli­mate change ​“one of the great­est chal­lenges of our time.” 

Now, the com­pany down­plays men­tion of cli­mate change but con­tin­ues to say it is ​“focused on reduc­ing emis­sions in our oper­a­tions [and] engag­ing sup­pli­ers to reduce emis­sions in sup­ply chains.”

Apple, Kraft Heinz, American Airlines, Meta, Ford and Coca-Cola are among the other U.S.-based com­pa­nies to fol­low suit along­side Swiss multi­na­tional Nestlé.

The speed with which com­pa­nies have sought to down­play their cli­mate com­mit­ments con­trasts starkly with the first Trump admin­is­tra­tion. 

After Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords for the first time, Walmart was one of more than 4,000 busi­nesses that joined the America Is Still In coali­tion. The coali­tion’s mem­bers com­mit­ted to reduc­ing U.S. emis­sions by 50 per­cent from 2005 lev­els by 2030. 

The coali­tion sought to recon­firm its mem­bers’ com­mit­ment after the new Trump admin­is­tra­tion pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords again. Walmart was among the com­pa­nies that did not re-com­mit to the effort.

However, other United States-based olive oil bot­tlers and pro­duc­ers have not wavered in cli­mate change or sus­tain­abil­ity com­mit­ments.

In February, Baltimore-based olive oil bot­tler and retailer Pompeian, another America Is Still In coali­tion sig­na­tory, announced its prod­ucts would bear The Carbon Trust ver­i­fi­ca­tion label.

“At Pompeian, we’re work­ing to reduce our car­bon emis­sions and to com­mu­ni­cate our sus­tain­abil­ity cre­den­tials trans­par­ently,” the com­pany wrote on LinkedIn. ​“By par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Carbon Trust pro­gram, we reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship and sus­tain­abil­ity, and how we imple­ment sus­tain­able prac­tices at every stage of our olive oil pro­duc­tion.”

California Olive Ranch, the U.S.’s largest olive oil pro­ducer and an America Is Still In mem­ber, has also advanced its sus­tain­abil­ity ini­tia­tives. 

The com­pany recently announced it would be the first U.S. pro­ducer to label its prod­ucts with the A Greener World sus­tain­abil­ity cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“ For us, it was really about the land and the farm­ing,” said Mary Mori, COR’s vice pres­i­dent of qual­ity and prod­uct. ​“We wanted to go beyond just a sus­tain­able cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and be regen­er­a­tive.”

She told Olive Oil Times that COR selected AGW from var­i­ous sus­tain­abil­ity cer­ti­fi­ca­tion firms because it aligned with the company’s goals and per­mits non-organic farm­ing prac­tices.

Mori said COR has fol­lowed regen­er­a­tive farm­ing prac­tices for the past four years. However, con­form­ing with the AGW cer­ti­fi­ca­tion has caused them to focus on reim­ple­ment­ing bio­di­ver­sity in their groves and shift­ing to sus­tain­able power and fuels.

According to its 2024 impact report, COR started plant­ing 11 miles (17 kilo­me­ters) of hedgerows with native shrubs and trees to help improve bio­di­ver­sity and sequester an addi­tional 115 met­ric tons of car­bon diox­ide green­house gas equiv­a­lent (CO2e).

Overall, the com­pany said it sequestered 1.3 kilo­grams of CO2e more than it emit­ted for each liter of olive oil pro­duced.

While Mori is unsure what eco­nomic impact the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion will have on the company’s olive oil sales, she antic­i­pated that regen­er­a­tive farm­ing would lower some pro­duc­tion costs in the long term, includ­ing reduc­ing the reliance on fer­til­iz­ers and phy­tosan­i­tary prod­ucts.

“Our big focus has been more on just doing the right thing for the soil, and even­tu­ally, you’re spend­ing less because you’re giv­ing back to the ground what it needs,” Mori said.

COR’s impact report high­lighted how fol­low­ing regen­er­a­tive prac­tices, includ­ing graz­ing 3,000 sheep in the groves, apply­ing more than eight mil­lion pounds (3.6 mil­lion kilo­grams) of com­post annu­ally and plant­ing cover crops across its groves allowed the com­pany to reduce syn­thetic fer­til­izer use by seven per­cent in 2023.

“We are going be work­ing with our grower part­ners to get them cer­ti­fied over the next few years and using our tem­plate of what we’ve done,” Mori added.

The more sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge will be con­vert­ing the company’s har­vesters and trac­tors to elec­tric vehi­cles and installing more solar power for its olive oil mill to meet the green energy require­ments. Already, COR said one-third of its mill’s energy require­ments are met with solar energy. 

Mori said that COR will con­tinue to improve sus­tain­abil­ity through its pre­ci­sion agri­cul­ture pro­grams, which include using satel­lites to col­lect data from the olive groves.

The com­pany is cur­rently involved in two sep­a­rate research pro­grams to col­lect data from its olive groves, which it will later use to make agro­nomic and har­vest­ing deci­sions on a block-by-block basis.

”Using tech­nol­ogy to help you make smarter, quicker and cheaper deci­sions is the push, espe­cially as the costs of farm­ing keep going up,” Mori said. 

• FT
• E&E News