Congress and New York consider bills focused on agribusiness climate and sustainability, including climate labeling on food products; study finds products with ESG-related claims have higher growth rates than products without claims: Legislation Monitor

November 7, 2024 (Industry Intelligence Inc.) –

Proposed legislation that addresses agribusiness climate and sustainability issues are a topic of discussion in both the United States Congress and the New York state legislature. If passed, the measures would fund climate-smart agricultural conversion projects, support climate labeling on food products, and revise government food purchase contracts to favor sustainable suppliers.

Bills under consideration include:

• US HB9794: This federal bill, known as the Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act of 2024, provides grants to agricultural producers for converting existing medium or large concentrated animal feeding operations into climate-smart facilities.
• US HB7163: This federal measure establishes two advisory bodies in the Department of Agriculture to review policies, identify research gaps, evaluate results of climate research, make programmatic recommendations, and enhance coordination of agricultural climate research and data systems.
• US HB9808: This proposed federal legislation creates a voluntary program for climate labeling on food products. Its goal is to provide consumers with transparent information about the greenhouse gas emissions associated with food products and to incentivize voluntary efforts by the food industry to reduce emissions and improve sustainability.
• NY S06955: This New York bill permits local governments to accept food supplier bids that are up to 10% higher than the lowest responsible proposal if the supplier meets certain values-based criteria.

These measures contain key provisions that impact agribusiness stakeholders. US HB9794 defines grant-eligible climate-smart conversion projects as improvements for outdoor animal access and conversion to specialty crop or organic production. Notably, the bill considers refusal by meat packers to purchase from grant recipients as an unfair practice under the Packers and Stockyards Act.

Another bill, US HB7163, would create the Rural Climate Alliance Network. The network would coordinate provision of climate research, data, extension services, and technical assistance to agricultural producers, industry stakeholders, and researchers.

US HB9890 creates a voluntary food climate label program that would be open to manufacturers, importers, distributors, and sellers of food products. Under the program, food labels would include numerical summaries of greenhouse gas emissions during various stages of the food product lifecycle.

Finally, in New York, NY S06955 allows local governments to accept food supplier bids that are up to 10% higher than other proposals if the supplier meets certain criteria, such as environmental sustainability, support for agriculture, and animal welfare. Of note, winning bidders must also make their supply chain data publicly available.

These federal and state measures support climate and sustainability efforts in the agribusiness sector at a time when consumers increasingly favor sustainable products. For example, between 2017 and 2022, products without environmental, social, and governance (ESG) claims posted a 20% growth rate, according to McKinsey and NielsenIQ. In contrast, products making ESG claims saw a significantly higher growth rate of 28% during the same period.

Failing to stay up to date on legislative changes can lead to missed opportunities and increased risks. Industry Intelligence Inc’s  Legislation Monitor offers the critical information you need to stay ahead of measures that could impact your company. It provides weekly updates on industry-specific legislation, including in-depth insights into bills, AI-generated summaries, bill histories, sponsor tracking, links to relevant news, and expert analyses, and discussions.

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