In February 2025, the European Commission proposed an
omnibus bill that would exempt 80% of EU firms from mandatory sustainability reporting, with the potentially devastating impact on corporate accountability. Whilst this affects all business sectors, yet again the fallout is likely to disproportionally affect the food and beverage industry which relies on its consumers being able to compare sustainability performance between companies. Genuine competitive advantage based on sustainability credentials is the potential casualty. Whilst all of these policy U-turns will impact the food and
beverage industry to a greater or lesser degree, they are possibly less well covered by the general media than the farm protests across Europe in 2024. Taking place during an EU election year, the action saw environmental protection fall victim to political expediency: junking plans to cut pesticide use, scrapping a strategy on sustainable food systems, and looser environmental and labour requirements that farmers must respect to access farming subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy. These protests were born of frustration amongst farmers regarding support for their livelihoods, the viability of small farms and food security, prompted by a swathe of green demands, and including free trade agreements. Fuel was added to the fire by claims of unfair pricing.
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Greenpeace, the climate action campaign, in February, decried
the European plans for the European agri-food industry as doing ‘little to curtail the environmental, climate and socioeconomic threats facing most farmers’ and ignoring ‘the findings of the Commission’s own advisory group.’ Whilst all of this leaves the EU food and farming strategy, as
well as its wider green agenda, in tatters, it is the food and beverage sector that will often bear the brunt of the impacts. Uniquely placed to contribute to climate change mitigation, whilst also potentially a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions – through farming and land use – the industry is also feeling the impacts of climate change on its supply chains, distribution, input costs and input choice and more. T ere is little doubt that the impact of climate change and extreme
weather events on food supplies and food security throughout the EU and beyond will place the food and beverage industry, in all of its manifestations, in the crosshairs of public opinion and political advantage for the foreseeable future.
Find out more about MHA at
www.mha.co.uk
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY
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