Protein Pact, an Animal Ag PR Group, Hosts Panel at DC Climate Week

DC Climate week just wrapped up, but the inaugural conference for climate action in DC featured a panel event with a curious host: Protein PACT, a public relations initiative for livestock industry trade groups. This meat industry PR effort promotes “animal protein’s unique place in sustainable, healthy diets.”  That’s a problem, given most Americans aren’t aware of just how big a role their food choices can play in climate action.

“PACT” stands for “People, Animals and Climate of Tomorrow.” But don’t let the name fool you: Protein PACT is neither an animal welfare nor a climate organization. It’s an interest group for the meat and dairy industries, and some of its partners have actively worked against measures to improve animal welfare and tackle livestock’s contribution to climate change.

The talk in question was called “Can animal agriculture drive sustainability solutions?,” and the event description nods to industry sustainability efforts to tackle the 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by livestock farming.

On the surface, this description is fairly innocuous. Yes, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has said that livestock account for 12 percent of global greenhouse emissions — but if we look at all of the peer-reviewed studies on this question, we actually find a range of as low as 12 to as high as 19.6 percent.

The “sustainability principles, practices and advances” that are highlighted in the event description also reflect the group’s underlying PR message: to assure you that the meat industry is already becoming more sustainable. But even if that were true (overlooking the industry’s long history of downplaying its climate impact) it leaves out the other, very necessary part of climate action to address emissions from meat — eating less of it.

The scientific evidence on this point is clear: we won’t be able to thwart the worst effects of climate change without serious changes to our diets. Around one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions come from food, and meat and dairy production are responsible for the majority of those emissions.

If we’re going to keep our planet livable in the long term, we need to eat less meat. Or, to be more precise, people in high-income and developed countries like the U.S. need to eat less meat, as we consume a disproportionate amount of it in the first place. Countries with high rates of childhood malnutrition tend to have relatively low rates of meat consumption, and places like that could stand to eat a little bit more meat without endangering the planet.

Protein PACT, however, is premised on the idea that we can effectively tackle the climate crisis not by eating less meat, but simply by changing the way meat is produced. Its website contains many examples of ways to reduce food’s carbon footprint, but not a single one of them involves people changing their diets.

One tactic in particular is worth mentioning: the Protein PACT praises the efforts of meat producers to reach “climate neutrality” or become “GHG neutral.” This refers to the dubious and largely discredited idea that companies can reduce their own climate impact simply by paying for a reduction in emissions elsewhere — all while taking only the most modest steps to change their own production practices.

Perhaps all of this is to be expected from an industry PR group, but then why was this group part of climate week in the first place?

Why Did DC Climate Week Let an Industrial Animal Ag Group Hold an Environmental Panel?

DC Climate Week, according to its website, is a volunteer-led organization that “brings together policymakers, climate professionals, industry leaders, and community organizers to drive local and global climate action. Many other cities host climate weeks, but organizers of the Washington DC event say that their event is unique because it “offers unparalleled access to policymakers, international organizations, and innovative funding opportunities.”

When asked about Protein PACT’s presence at the conference, DC Climate Week’s organizers told Sentient over email that “anyone can apply to register a participating event at DCCW,” and that the organization “encourage[s] all community members to engage critically with the ideas presented throughout the week, as well as the people and organizations that present them.”

“Participating events are hosted by the local community at nearby venues; they are not organized by DCCW nor are they located at the hub venues,” the organizers said. “We believe informed public discussion and debate over the pros and cons of every topic and potential climate solution presented at affiliate events is essential to progress.”

It’s unclear, however, whether all of the events on the DCCW calendar have been personally approved by the group’s organizers, or whether they were added simply by virtue of having been submitted. When asked this directly, DCCW’s organizers did not answer, and instead referred Sentient to the group’s Frequently Asked Questions page.

Sentient also reached out to Protein PACT for comment, but received no response.

Who Is Behind the Protein PACT?

In essence, Protein PACT is an industry group that exists to promote the benefits of animal agriculture, both from a health and an economic standpoint, and to message that animal farmers have made progress around animal welfare and climate pollution.

The groups listed as “partners” on Protein PACT’s website include a few trade groups worth mentioning, including a feed industry group called IFEEDER, as well as the Pork Checkoff and the National Pork Producers Council.

The homepage of the Protein PACT website drives this home further, reading:

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, meat, eggs and milk offer crucial sources of much-needed nutrients which cannot easily be obtained from other sources. Raising animals and producing animal-source foods also supports millions of livelihoods around the world – for example, more than 1.5 million jobs depend on beef in the United States alone.

Obviously it’s not true that the nutrients humans need “cannot easily be obtained” from non-animal sources, as evidenced by the existence of healthy people on plant-based diets. But beyond that misinformation, the message sets up a bit of a false dichotomy: Climate research institutions are urging certain people to cut back on meat, not insisting that they stop eating meat altogether.

And despite the group’s claims about animal welfare, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and the Meat Institute also waged a legal war against California’s Proposition 12, one of the strongest animal welfare laws in the country. Proposition 12 prohibits the production and sale of certain animal products sourced from animals that had less space than set forth in the law, effectively requiring farmers to give their livestock a modest increase in livable space on factory farms.

The NPPC and Meat Institute vehemently opposed these modest improvements to animal welfare from the beginning, and sued to defeat Prop 12 in court. Although the lawsuit made its way up to the Supreme Court, it was ultimately allowed to stand, at which point the NPPC launched an advertising campaign aimed at convincing Congress to scrap Proposition 12. These pork industry groups continue to work on federal efforts to overturn Prop 12, despite a lack of universal support from lawmakers and pork farmers.

Two other partners of the Protein PACT are the Pork Checkoff, which is managed by the National Pork Board, and IFEEDER, the non-profit wing of a prominent animal feed lobby. Both the National Pork Board and IFEEDER are funders of the CLEAR Center, a “research” institute that consistently downplays the impact of animal agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Bottom Line

We’ve talked a lot about the “PACT” part of “Protein PACT,” but not much about the “Protein.” Although protein is an essential component of a healthy diet, protein deficiency is exceedingly rare in developed countries. In the U.S., most of us actually eat too much — one study found that most American adults eat twice as much protein as recommended.

Even if this weren’t the case, it needs to be stressed that climate scientists aren’t pressing for the abolition of animal protein altogether. They’re simply urging people in developed countries to substitute some of their animal protein with plant-based sources instead, of which there are many.

A Washington Post poll found that almost three-quarters of Americans believe, wrongly, that eating less meat would have little or no impact on greenhouse gasses. The fact that this misconception is so widespread only underscores the importance of getting this accurate information to consumers: If we want to bring down greenhouse emissions and avert a climate disaster, simply changing production processes around meat is not going to be sufficient. We actively need to eat less meat — and that’s the opposite of what Protein PACT’s partners want.