Brief: McDonald’s joins PepsiCo as founding partner of AgMission carbon initiative, commits $5m

• McDonald’s USA has joined AgMission, a global platform enabling collaboration between farmer associations, corporates, researchers, and other stakeholders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) in agriculture. 
• The fast food chain — one of two “founding partners” of AgMission along with PepsiCo, which signed up in April — is committing $5 million to the initiative over the next five years to “develop and implement climate-smart farming solutions at scales and rates previously unimagined.”
• “We’re striving to feed more people in increasingly sustainable ways by creating a food system in which communities, animals, and the planet thrive,” said Marion Gross, senior vice president and chief supply chain officer, North America, McDonald’s. “It’s been proven time and again that real action comes through convening of partners around steady science-based strategies. We’re proud to contribute to [AgMission] to help measurably reduce GHGe, improve supply chain resilience, and enable regenerative agriculture.”

Why it matters:

Originally named the Agriculture Climate Partnership, AgMission was launched in February 2020 by the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR), US Farmers & Ranchers in Action (USFRA), and the World Farmers’ Organization (WFO).

It aims to bring together “all organizations and companies currently focused on climate science, while rapidly accelerating research and funding” to create “science-based solutions that can be rapidly deployed” to boost farm resiliency and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Last month, McDonald’s pledged to reach net-zero GHGe across its operations by 2050.