This year’s New York Climate Week united policymakers, investors and campaigners as agrifood giants lined up to showcase their climate credentials.
Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, attended the “Regen Ag House” – a curated space to highlight its supposed progress on “regenerative agriculture.”
However, behind the branding, the picture was less flattering.
The term “regenerative agriculture” has become a catch-all slogan for the industry – a way to signal climate action while skirting its most pressing problem: methane, writes Lily Roberts, Campaign Advisor at Changing Markets Foundation.
Climate chaos is farming’s greatest threat
The timing could not be more urgent. 2024 was the hottest year on record, capping a decade of unprecedented warming. Across Europe, drought shrivelled crops, while heatwaves and floods disrupted supply chains. In Germany, low water levels on the Rhine once again stalled shipments of fertiliser and grain.
For farmers, these are existential risks. Agriculture depends on climate stability: crops need reliable rainfall and moderate temperatures, while livestock need steady grazing conditions. Without a stable climate, there is no stable farming and reliable food supply. Yet the agrifood industry is helping to drive the very instability it cannot afford.
Methane emissions from livestock are central to that problem. They account for 40–50% of beef and dairy’s footprint and animal agriculture is the largest man-made source of methane, standing at roughly 32% of global total. Unlike CO?, methane is short-lived in the atmosphere, lasting around a decade, but it is approximately 80 times more potent in the near term. Cutting methane could avoid nearly 0.3°C of warming by 2040 and is one of the fastest ways to slow the climate crisis.
Despite this, methane was barely mentioned at the Regenerative Agriculture Summit I attended in Amsterdam.
Amsterdam summit: Distraction tactics and buzzwords over substance
One speaker at the summit quipped: “If you’re looking for a definition of regenerative agriculture, enjoy the teas and coffees – you’re in the wrong place.” The room laughed, but the remark underscored the problem. While buzzwords like “resilience”, “anti-fragility” and “farmer first” dominated discussions, farmers were largely absent, and the stage was packed with agrifood giants – Nestlé, Syngenta, soil carbon credit firms – all pushing regenerative agriculture as a path to “net zero” or “beyond net zero”. No evidence was provided that these claims were realistic or that regenerative agriculture is capable of delivering on its climate promise.
This vagueness is no accident. In our 2024 report The New Merchants of Doubt, we analysed 22 major agrifood companies. More than half – including Nestlé, Arla, Cargill and Friesland Campina – now promote regenerative agriculture in their sustainability reports, racking up 269 mentions across the sector. By contrast, methane was mentioned just 127 times.
Why? Because regenerative agriculture offers a convenient distraction. It sounds positive and future-focused, but without a shared definition it becomes a catch-all label. Companies can cherry pick which practices to highlight, while sidestepping tougher conversations about livestock numbers, reduction of nitrogen fertilisers or methane emissions.
Nestlé leads the industry approach on bold promises with little action
Rather than embrace strong, science-based definitions, the industry has created its own framework. The Regenerating Together initiative, developed through the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform and backed by 33 corporate food giants including Nestlé, Cargill and Dairy Farmers of America, bills itself as an “aligned approach” to regenerative agriculture.
In reality, it is a rubber stamp for business as usual, avoiding any mention of methane or reducing livestock or pesticide use. Instead, it prioritises “profitability and yield” – ensuring industrial production remains intact while companies claim the regenerative mantle.
Nestlé has been one of the most enthusiastic adopters of regenerative language, mentioning it 124 times in its 2023 sustainability report. At the Amsterdam summit, the company claimed regenerative farming would help deliver its net zero pledge, even suggesting it could go “beyond net zero”. However, when I attended Nestlé’s AGM earlier this year and asked about methane – its biggest blind spot – the response was evasive.
Nestlé’s strategy leans heavily on insetting: counting soil carbon projects and on-farm activities as emissions reductions. Research from the New Climate Institute shows that because of this accounting trick, Nestlé’s much-publicised pledge to cut emissions by 50% by 2030 equates to only a 16–24% real reduction.
While Nestlé participated in Climate Week NYC 2025 where it showcased its regenerative agenda at the Regen Ag House, the conglomerate quietly dropped out of the Dairy Methane Action Alliance. As one of the only industry initiatives that requires members to publish a methane action plan, Nestlé’s exit raises further questions about the credibility of its climate action.
Big dairy companies have lobbied hard against real methane regulation at EU level. Internal documents we obtained show industry groups successfully kept methane out of key laws like the National Emissions Ceiling Directive, arguing that voluntary measures were sufficient.
It is clear that while the industry continues to promote regenerative agriculture to policymakers, proof of action is not where it should be to enact real change.
A call for real climate action
Regenerative agriculture has become a corporate-friendly buzzword that delays meaningful action. Without a clear, independent definition, it risks entrenching the industrial model it claims to reform. It also massively overstates its climate benefits. While regenerative agriculture is useful for biodiversity and soil conservation, it is mostly proposed as a climate solution, where its scientific merits – especially when it comes to regenerative grazing – are much more questionable.
If Nestlé and other major food companies are serious about climate leadership, they must stop hiding behind vague promises and start focusing on what matters most: cutting methane and other emissions at source. Anything less is just greenwashing dressed up as “regeneration”.
The climate clock is ticking. For investors, policymakers and the public, the question is simple: will companies like Nestlé keep selling slogans, or will they confront the real crisis head-on?
The reality is that without a stable climate, the future of farming is not secure. And without action on methane, 1.5 degrees will slip out of our hands, and so will a path to a liveable future.
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