Article by Zac Braxton-Smith, courtesy of Queensland Counrty Life
20.02.2026
The big multinationals that buy Australian meat are stepping back from sustainability and carbon accounting, according to livestock industry leaders.
And that will change how producers do business.
Two keynote speakers at Pacific Seeds’ Foundation Farm field days in Allora on Tuesday, February 17, told the crowd of about 150 they crossed sustainability off the list of their presentation topics.
But one attendee asked: “Carbon footprint: no one wants to talk about it, everyone is scared of it. How is your business going to place that in the future?”
There had been so much hullabaloo on how the beef industry deals with the sustainability question, according to Camm Agricultural Group CEO Bryce Camm, who sits on the Australian beef sustainability framework steering group.
“We as an industry and as a protein source get bashed a lot about being an environmental vandal, for lack of a better word,” Mr Camm said.
“So industry has been sensitive to that, and has invested a lot in this space.
“I’ll be brave enough to say that I think that era or that marketing ploy is coming to an end.
“I deal with three of the largest multinational protein companies in the world, and not one of them has said ‘Bryce, we need your number [on carbon emissions]’.”
Food multinationals stepped back from net zero targets in 2025, according industry news websites, at a time when the Trump administration was playing down environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns.
At home, Meat and Livestock Australia ditched 2030 as its target date to become carbon neutral in July, citing challenges around support and investment.
Coggan Farms finance and development manager Emily Coggan said two or three years ago her family’s big corporate customers were all talking about “knowing your number”.
“I think at that point in time it was more, as Bryce has clearly articulated, a marketing ploy for your multinationals,” Ms Coggan said.
“What we realised, regardless of whether we needed to report our emissions… [was that] we had to get better data, more regularly captured, as a part of doing business.
“I also came away from that reporting piece and realised the best way to serve our business from an ESG standpoint was to buy a neighbour.
“An imaginary neighbour, who didn’t have the same practices in… controlled traffic management, soil nutrition and rotation.
“I think [the sustainability issue] has not gone away completely, but the flavour is definitely out.
“People care more about the bottom line again.”
In the week of the field days, Liberal National Party senators pressed the government on how its net zero targets would affect producers.
There were concerns that carbon sequestration plans would lock up millions of hectares of agricultural land.
Mr Camm said the market’s step back from sustainability could mean that beef producers would not need to invest as much in carbon accounting and reporting.
“We know that the government is rolling out its reporting: you will do your tax return, and you will do your emissions return,” he said.
“My company will [report on emissions] next year, many of the companies we supply are doing this now.
“I sat down with a whole consulting group, with Ernst and Young, the National Farmers Federation and our financier the other day, and they all wanted to know ‘what are you doing to report your offtake’.
“I said ‘nothing’.”
Mr Camm said his big international customers would likely calculate their emissions from livestock by using a sample, as opposed to counting emissions from every supplier.
Meat and Livestock Australia and the Australian Meat Industry Council were contacted for comment.
