Danone, one of the world’s largest dairy companies, this week announced a global action plan to reduce absolute methane emissions from its fresh milk supply chain by 30% by 2030 compared to 2020.

The move has potentially huge impacts for dairy farmers across Europe.

As a company, 70% of Danone’s methane emissions come from its fresh milk supply, which is used to create yoghurt and yoghurt drinks such as Actimel and Activia. The other 30% of its emissions comes from specialist nutrition products such as infant formula.

Although Irish dairy farmers do not supply fresh milk to Danone, Irish co-ops Tirlán, Tipperary Co-op, Dairygold and Lakeland supply dairy ingredients worth an estimated €100m annually.

While Danone has said its 30% methane cut will be focused on its fresh milk supply and therefore will not directly affect Irish farmers, a spokesperson for Danone in Dublin told the Irish Farmers Journal this week that it will be “engaging with their dairy ingredients suppliers and the broader dairy industry to encourage alignment on progress towards the Global Methane Pledge target [of 30% reduction by 2030]”.

The Danone move raises the prospect that emissions targets set by individual commercial companies could be more challenging than Government targets for national emissions cuts.

On its fresh milk chain cut, Danone confirmed its first step will be to “holistically improve practices on farm, including herd and manure management, and animal welfare, because these levers deliver multiple benefits beyond methane emissions reduction”.

It wants to remove 1.2m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent at farm level by 2030. Its spokesperson said feed additives can be used as a “complementary solution to go the last mile on the company’s most efficient farms”.

Danone has piloted DSM’s Bovaer, a feed supplement that demonstrated an 18.3% reduction in methane emissions from livestock.

Danone’s action is not surprising given the challenges corporates now face from investors and increased regulation to reduce their climate and environmental footprint.

While Irish farming has a national target to reduce CO2 emissions, it does not have the capacity to reduce the absolute methane emissions of every litre of milk to the degree Danone is targeting. To what extent other large dairy companies follow suit remains to be seen.

This move may, in time, challenge the competitiveness of Irish dairying and grass-based systems, as competing indoor-based milk producers have access to technology allowing them to meet methane reduction targets.

Danone’s move begs the question whether Ireland’s emissions reduction approach for agri, where all greenhouse gases are combined, is at odds with what supply chains will require.