The animal agriculture industry’s obstruction of campaigns promoting individual climate action

Loredana Loy and Jennifer Jacquet

Climate Policy, 2025, vol. 25, issue 9, 1536-1545

Abstract: The oil and gas industry has regularly deflected responsibility towards individual consumers. In contrast, here we show that the US animal agriculture industry has not only avoided notions of individual responsibility but has obstructed even modest efforts to encourage individual dietary change. Drawing on records from 1989 to 2023, we document civil society efforts to advocate dietary shifts as a climate change mitigation strategy, including the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation, Diet for a New America, Beyond Beef, and Meatless Monday, and the industry’s opposition to these campaigns. The animal agriculture industry hired scientists to produce industry-friendly emissions reports and challenge individual action, influenced public discourse around dietary change, and created a front group, the Food Facts Coalition, with a mission to defend the industry against ‘anti-cow arguments’. The animal agriculture industry’s response to individual dietary change illustrates a unique form of climate obstruction and suggests that an industry’s approach to personal responsibility is context-dependent and action-specific.Key policy insights:Dietary change is an action with significant potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that is immediately available to individuals.Since the 1980s, civil society campaigns have encouraged dietary change as a climate mitigation strategy and faced systematic obstruction from the animal agriculture industry.The animal agriculture industry’s opposition to dietary change contrasts with the oil and gas industry’s support for individual energy reduction and shows that industry attitudes towards individual action are context-dependent and action-specific.Climate advocates should emphasize the feasibility and scientific support for dietary change as a form of individual action and reclaim earlier, more ambitious dietary change goals that were diminished in part due to industry opposition.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2025.2460603

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