Is your cereal going green?

General Mills Sets Ambitious Goal for Greenhouse Gas Cuts

GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — Aug 30, 2015, 2:00 PM ET
By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press

General Mills has set an ambitious goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 28 percent by 2025 — not just within its own operations but from farm to fork to landfill.

CEO Ken Powell, in outlining the plan to The Associated Press ahead of the company's official announcement Monday, said General Mills is compelled to act because climate change ultimately will be bad for business.

General Mills will invest more than $100 million in energy efficiency and clean energy within its own facilities worldwide, and partner with suppliers to foster more sustainable agricultural practices, including sourcing products from an additional 250,000 acres of organic production globally by 2020.

"We think that human-caused greenhouse gas causes climate change and climate volatility and that's going to stress the agricultural supply chain, which is very important to us," Powell said in an interview at company headquarters in suburban Minneapolis. "Obviously we depend on that for our business, and we all depend on that for the food we eat."

Other major food companies have greenhouse gas goals, but General Mills officials said they know of no other major player that has targeted its entire chain — from raw material suppliers to consumers. The company estimates that 92 percent of greenhouse gases associated with that chain come from entities it doesn't control.

(More here.)