French Dairy Giant Bel Leads Industry on Methane Cuts

A French cheese company just showed the dairy industry how to turn climate promises into measurable progress.

Bel Group, the maker of Laughing Cow and Babybel cheeses, rocketed from fourth place to first in the latest Methane Action Tracker rankings. The company overtook previous leader Danone by setting ambitious reduction targets and actually following through with action plans.

The rankings reveal a striking pattern. Members of the Dairy and Methane Action Alliance now average 61.4% on methane reduction efforts, up from 45.9% since May 2024. Companies outside the alliance? They're stuck at just 22.3%.

That three-to-one performance gap shows what happens when businesses work together on climate action. The alliance includes major food companies like Danone, General Mills, Kraft Heinz, and Nestlé, though Nestlé recently left the group and has since dropped from sixth to ninth place in the rankings.

New members are seeing dramatic improvements. Agropur jumped from 15% to 61% in one reporting period. Idaho Milk Products and Savencia both climbed to 60% scores after joining the initiative.

The progress matters because methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that dairy farming produces naturally. Cutting these emissions offers one of the fastest ways to slow climate warming in the short term.

Fourteen of 23 assessed dairy and coffee companies now have livestock methane action plans, up from just ten in the previous report. Only two companies, Danone and Bel Group, have set targets aligned with the Global Methane Pledge to cut emissions 30% compared to 2020 levels.

Danone has already reduced its methane emissions by 29.8% against 2020 baselines. The company calls methane cuts "the most immediate opportunity" to slow warming.

The Ripple Effect

The tracker also assessed 20 major grocery retailers and found troubling gaps. Not a single retailer has set a methane reduction target, and seven don't even recognize methane as an issue in their sustainability reports.

Tesco and Lidl lead the retail pack at just 43.5%, while US retailers lag far behind their European counterparts. None of the American grocery chains improved their scores since the last assessment.

This matters because retailers shape consumer demand that drives dairy and meat production. Without retailer commitment, supply chain progress could stall.

Maddy Haughton-Boakes from Changing Markets Foundation says the results prove that accountability drives results. "Frontrunners Bel Group and Danone prove what can be done," she notes, adding that companies acting now are managing climate risk before it hits their bottom line.

The message is clear: individual company action helps, but collective commitment transforms entire industries.