Eight Minute Climate Fix
Quick and concise, Eight Minute Climate Fix covers everything that's happening in climate action and the energy transition. We tackle the complexity of the changes happening in our world and make it easy, and quick, for anyone to understand.
Our sister podcast, More Than Eight Minutes, includes the extended versions with our guests for anyone who wants to go a level deeper into these issues.
Eight Minute Climate Fix
Sustainable Food Systems (Ashley Allen - Oatly) - Episode 49
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In this episode, we take a hard look at the challenges faced by the food industry in the context of climate change. Paul interviews Ashley Allen, Chief Sustainability Officer of Oatly, on how the oat-based company is striving to decarbonize their products while educating consumers on the environmental impact their food choices make.
For more information on Oatly, visit:
https://www.oatly.com
For more information on Ashley, please visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-n-p-allen-9483b0b3/
And for the full interview with Ashley, please go to our sister podcast, More Than Eight Minutes:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2129384/13672843
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This is 8 minutes a podcast helping you understand the energy and climate challenge in just a few minutes. I'm your host, paul Schuster. It's easy enough to look at a wind turbine or a solar farm and think about the impact on climate, but it may be a bit more of a stretch when it comes to your morning latte. But the reality is that our food system is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and the dairy portion of that food ecosystem is particularly important. In this episode I sit down with Ashley Allen, chief Sustainability Officer at Oatly, to discuss not only what they're doing to decarbonize their products, but how they're encouraging their customers to think about food choices and the handprint that each consumer has on the planet.
Speaker 1:8 minutes it's how long it takes the sun's race to earth. We're about twice as long as it takes my local Starbucks barista to load me up with a venti quad iced white mocha without milk. Hold the whip, let's get it on. Not all climate action comes in the form of shiny solar panels or Tesla vehicles. Something as ordinary as your food choice can have an outsized impact on the planet. Oatly is bent on educating consumers on how their food choices can affect climate change. Ashley explains a bit more about the company and their sustainability ethos.
Speaker 2:Oatly is a plant-based company I would say an oat-based company, as our name suggests based in Sweden, but with a presence all over the world, with a mission to really bring people oat-based products that can replace dairy products in their everyday diets. Sustainability really is embedded within our mission and is the core value. We really look at our existence and our purpose as a company as the ability to really help change the food system, change the way people think about food and reduce the impact that traditional dairy has on the world.
Speaker 1:The food system is a huge contributor to climate change. Everything from the food production to processing, to retail, to the consumption, the chain of actions required to get that morning latte into your hands. Well, it contributes a lot to climate.
Speaker 2:The food system actually drives around one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. And then, diving a little bit deeper when you think not just about climate change, but also about air quality and the like the food system actually drives around one-third of global methane emissions, which is considered a super climate pollutant.
Speaker 1:Hey, food occupies an interesting space in the climate discussion, for one, as Ashley alluded to, it plays an outsized role in contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. In the first place, not only do the physical operations of farming and processing food create carbon, but the methane created by livestock can be up to six times as potent as a carbon molecule in warming potential. And then there's the impact that changing climate patterns is having on the food chain itself. Farmers are having to contend with increased risks of drought, of scorching temperatures, of late frosts that can kill off an entire harvest.
Speaker 2:I often say that, when it comes down to it, farmers are really on the front lines of climate change. Their day-to-day livelihoods are dependent on, you know, the weather, on water availability, on the heat and cooling cycle and things like that, and we've spoken to so many farmers that we work with that are actually experiencing this in real time.
Speaker 1:As Oatly's Chief Sustainability Officer, ashley is tasked with some enormous challenges, both in how the company operates and ensuring that the carbon footprint of Oatly's operations is minimized as much as possible, but also in how to educate and be transparent enough with consumers such that they feel comfortable with how their switch to an Oat-based dairy product can positively affect the planet. Regarding the company's operations, oatly has leaned into partnering with their farmer community to enact meaningful change.
Speaker 2:So really working with our mills and the farmers that supply them to identify what opportunities do they see, whether it's cover cropping, whether it's precision input of fertilizers, whether it's reductants and fertilizers or pesticides a number of different changes that they can make, and we want to support them in that effort.
Speaker 1:Oatly is stepping in to both help their supply chain adapt to changing climate conditions, while also doing their part to mitigate their impact on emissions in the first place. But Oatly's brand purpose goes beyond simply the activities needed to get their product to the market. Their carbon footprint is only part of the equation.
Speaker 2:And it's through that look across the value chain that a company can really understand both how can they improve their own footprint whether it's climate footprint or other environmental issues but also how can you have a better handprint on the world.
Speaker 1:A planetary handprint, an indication as to how our consumer choices affect the environment.
Speaker 2:I really look at handprint as what is the impact that a company can have outside of its direct value chain?
Speaker 1:Oatly's brand and company ethos is perhaps rooted in this concept of handprint. The company engages with their customers and potential customers to help them make informed decisions, not just on the taste or cost or the traditional benefits of their products, but also on how the decision to purchase Oatly products helps to support the environment. And if sustainability is now a buying criteria, well, Ashley and her team are learning just how to communicate those sustainability benefits to potential buyers.
Speaker 2:Well, Oatly's approach has always been to be as transparent and direct as possible.
Speaker 1:Oatly does this in a number of ways through transparent reporting of their GHG emissions or the life cycle impact of the different products, through to labeling their carton directly with a climate impact number, even to the point of challenging other companies and competitors to step up to the plate.
Speaker 2:This is an area that we all need to understand much more. What is the impact of what we eat? And the only way that we can do that is by companies being more transparent around what that impact is.
Speaker 1:Sustainability is embedded in everything that Oatly does, from their support of farmers to adapt to climate change, to mitigating the impact that the company's operations have on the environment, all the way through to how Oatly is helping customers reduce their handprint through the consumption choices that they're making. And that third leg of the stool may be the most interesting aspect of what they're trying to do.
Speaker 2:What is the environmental impact of this food or this technology or this transportation choice? To me, that helps at least start guiding us in the right direction.
Speaker 1:I'm Paul Shuster, and this has been your 8 Minutes.
