Greener Living

Why Climate-Friendly Beef Labels Fall Short

A study by an environmental nonprofit found beef producers aren’t providing enough evidence for their green assertions.

Beef cattle at a farm near Clinton, Missouri in November.Photographer: Clayton Steward/Bloomberg

Shoppers in the US and Europe are finding a growing number of products labeled or marketed as net carbon zero or carbon neutral. They’re part of an emerging group of certifications purporting to slash beef’s outsize climate footprint.

But an analysis of five such programs found they fail to publicly disclose enough emissions data to substantiate those claims, according to a report from the nonprofit World Resources Institute.