The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) has published new research showing that the vast majority of the world’s major food and agriculture companies need to take decisive action to protect the planet and to feed the world in a healthy and equitable way.

Analysing the 350 influential food and agriculture companies around the world, including Bayer, Unilever and Walmart, companies were ranked on how they are managing their impact on nature and the environment, improving the healthiness of their food products, and providing decent working conditions.

While food systems are responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and agricultural expansion drives almost 90 per cent of global deforestation, only 15 per cent of companies have a commitment to zero ecosystem conversion, and just 6 per cent have a time-bound commitment to eliminate deforestation entirely. Only 2 per cent of companies understand their wider impact on nature, despite their reliance on the long-term health of the planet to grow crops.

However, there has been some small progress across the sector since 2021: almost half of companies have some form of climate commitments, of which 46 companies have scope one and two GHG reduction targets in line with limiting global warming to 1.5C and report progress, up from 27 in 2021, and 13 report progress against science based targets for scope three emissions, up from 7 in 2021.

Another positive is that regenerative agriculture has gained traction with 51 per cent of companies referencing it and 27 per cent implementing strategies to improve livelihoods of farmers and fishers through procurement practices and pricing strategies. With almost half of agricultural lands moderately to severely degraded, regenerative agriculture practices are hailed as an important lever to restore soil health, increase climate resilience, protect water resources and biodiversity, and enhance farmers' productivity and profitability.

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