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Big food brands are falling short on their regenerative agriculture promises
A new report finds that many of the world’s largest food companies are missing the mark on regenerative agriculture, offering little more than buzzwords while continuing to support unsustainable farming practices.
In short:
- Most major food companies received a “D” grade for failing to adequately support farming that improves soil health, reduces pollution, and cuts chemical use.
- While some companies like PepsiCo and Lamb Weston lead the pack with clearer goals and data collection, most offer vague programs without requiring meaningful action from their suppliers.
- The report warns that loosely defined “regenerative” programs risk becoming greenwashing unless companies enforce clear standards and stop relying on harmful practices like excessive pesticide use.
Key quote:
“Engaging in a full range of regenerative practices is essential to improving soil health, biodiversity, farm resilience, and other outcomes. Companies requiring two or fewer practices as part of their regenerative programs … may fail to regenerate healthy soils and be at risk for greenwashing claims.”
— report from the nonprofit group, As You Sow
Why this matters:
Industrial farming practices directly affect human health through pesticide exposure, polluted water, and degraded food quality. This report makes it clear that major food giants are not doing nearly enough to help farmers shift to practices that build soil, cut pollution, and reduce pesticide dependence. As long as “regenerative” remains a vague feel-good term without real standards, it risks becoming yet another greenwashing label slapped on business as usual.
Read more: As regenerative agriculture gains momentum, report warns of “greenwashing”
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Google’s emissions spike faster than reported, driven by AI and data center expansion
Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have surged more than the company disclosed, with new research showing a 65% increase since 2019, driven largely by energy demands from artificial intelligence and data centers.
In short:
- A nonprofit analysis found Google’s emissions rose 65% from 2019 to 2024, not the 51% the company reported, and have increased over 1,500% since 2010.
- The discrepancy comes from differing emissions accounting methods — Google uses market-based offsets, while researchers used location-based emissions tied to actual grid energy use.
- Google’s water use also jumped 27% in a year, reaching 11 billion gallons in 2024, enough to supply Boston and nearby suburbs for nearly two months.
Key quote:
“Google’s own data makes it clear: the corporation is contributing to the acceleration of climate catastrophe, and the metrics that matter – how many emissions they emit, how much water they use, and how fast these trends are accelerating – are headed in the wrong direction for us and the planet.”
— Nicole Sugerman, campaign manager at Kairos Fellowship
Why this matters:
As AI-driven technologies grow, the infrastructure supporting them — particularly large-scale data centers — requires enormous amounts of electricity and water. Even as companies like Google promise net-zero emissions, the reality is far more complex. Much of their reported progress hinges on carbon offsets and projections, not reductions in actual energy use. These facilities often draw power from fossil-fuel-dominated grids and extract water from local sources, which can stress communities already facing climate-related droughts. Rising emissions and water usage challenge the image of tech as a clean industry and show how its expansion may come at the cost of public health, local water supplies, and global climate goals.
From this time last year: Google's emissions soar due to AI energy demands
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Greenpeace faces ruin after oil giant wins lawsuit rewriting Standing Rock history
The company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) convinced a North Dakota jury to blame Greenpeace for protests led by Indigenous activists — and now the nonprofit faces a $666 million penalty.
Episode one of SLAPP’d, the latest season of the Drilled podcast, focusing on the Greenpeace/DAPL trial.
In short:
- In 2016, thousands of people gathered near the Standing Rock Reservation to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, led by Indigenous groups defending water and land rights. One of them, Cody Hall, became a public spokesperson for the resistance but was later targeted by a lawsuit.
- Energy Transfer, the pipeline’s builder, filed a sweeping racketeering suit alleging that Greenpeace and other nonprofits masterminded a violent conspiracy to sabotage the project — despite thin evidence and years of reporting confirming Indigenous leadership.
- The private security firm TigerSwan ran intelligence operations against protestors, and possible infiltrators may have posed as Greenpeace representatives, muddying the legal waters as Energy Transfer advanced a narrative that ultimately won over a jury.
Key quote:
“Greenpeace wasn’t running anything… They were merely an organization that was there as allies.”
— Cody Hall, former Red Warrior Camp spokesperson
Why this matters:
The verdict against Greenpeace in the Energy Transfer lawsuit is a landmark moment in how corporate power rewrites protest history. If a major energy company can bankrupt a nonprofit for supporting Indigenous-led protest, it chills dissent everywhere. And it distracts from the health and environmental harms these protests were trying to stop — namely, oil infrastructure that threatens water and cultural resources.
Read more:
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EPA moves to delay coal plant water pollution rules, raising health concerns
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to delay and potentially weaken water pollution standards for coal-fired power plants, citing energy grid demands and economic pressures.
In short:
- The EPA said it will propose delaying compliance deadlines for Biden-era rules designed to limit toxic water pollution from coal plants and may explore broader regulatory rollbacks.
- The current rules aim to prevent more than 660 million pounds of pollutants — linked to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and IQ loss — from reaching U.S. waterways annually.
- Trump-appointed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin argued the rollback supports electric grid reliability and economic independence, calling coal “beautiful, clean.”
Key quote:
“Zeldin has made it abundantly clear that he is willing to sacrifice just about anything—including our health and our futures—for the profit of the fossil fuel industry.”
— Patrick Drupp, climate policy director, Sierra Club
Why this matters:
Coal-fired power plants discharge toxic metals like arsenic, mercury, and selenium into rivers and lakes — substances known to harm brain development, elevate cancer risk, and disrupt ecosystems. The Biden-era rule was designed to curb this pollution using updated treatment technologies. Loosening or delaying those rules could increase public exposure to contaminants through drinking water and fish, especially in communities already facing environmental health disparities. The decision comes as U.S. energy use climbs amid climate-driven heat waves, but it also raises alarms about prioritizing fossil fuel interests over long-term public health.
Read more: States push for coal ash control as federal oversight weakens
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Texas court rules oil companies own fracking wastewater, not landowners
A recent Texas Supreme Court ruling gives oil companies full ownership of produced water from drilling operations, a move that may shape future control over wastewater re-use and mineral extraction.
In short:
- The Texas Supreme Court ruled that oil companies holding mineral leases, not landowners, own the chemically contaminated wastewater known as produced water, which comes from oil and gas drilling.
- The case arose after a landowning family leased rights to one company for oil drilling and to another for the wastewater; the court decided produced water is part of the mineral estate and considered waste, not water.
- With new interest in extracting lithium and other minerals from produced water, the ruling clarifies ownership but leaves unresolved who controls valuable non-hydrocarbon elements.
Key quote:
“[P]roduced water is not water. While produced water contains molecules of water, both from injected fluid and subsurface formations, the solution itself is waste — a horse of an entirely different color.”
— Texas Supreme Court
Why this matters:
Fracking generates billions of gallons of toxic wastewater laced with salts, metals and radioactive material. Disposing of it has long been a problem, linked in Texas and elsewhere to groundwater contamination and earthquakes from deep-well injection. But now that companies are eyeing produced water as a resource — for irrigating crops or extracting critical minerals like lithium — questions of ownership carry financial and environmental weight. Who profits from this toxic byproduct may shape how it's managed and whether it's handled safely. The court’s ruling makes clear that mineral rights holders control this waste, but it also opens a Pandora’s box over the environmental oversight and long-term public health implications of reusing or repurposing it.
Related EHN coverage: "No evidence" that fracking can be done without threatening human health: Report
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The hidden cost of powering your phone might be someone else’s cancer
As the world races to secure rare earth elements for tech and defense, residents of Baotou, China bear the brunt of toxic pollution and displacement.
In short:
- Baotou is China’s rare earth capital, fueling global tech and military industries while dealing with toxic waste and widespread health problems.
- Residents living near tailings ponds have faced cancer, birth defects, and neurological disorders linked to exposure from mining byproducts.
- While Beijing touts environmental cleanup and economic progress, local communities have been displaced, and evidence of illness and contamination persists.
Key quote:
"Large-scale extraction quite often proceeds at the expense of the health and well-being of surrounding communities, pretty much regardless of the context."
— Julie Klinger, associate professor at the University of Delaware
Why this matters:
China calls Baotou its “rare earth capital,” and it’s not exaggerating. More than 80% of the country’s known reserves are extracted and processed here. But what’s left behind after the magnets and metals are separated is an environmental nightmare — tailings ponds leaking toxics substances, and ghost towns where farms once fed generations. While Beijing talks up cleanup efforts and green growth, those living closest to the waste say the truth is much dirtier. Global tech giants and defense contractors rely on Baotou, but its people are paying with their health. The rest of the world rarely looks backRead more: In push to mine for minerals, clean energy advocates ask what going green really means
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Toxic mine runoff cleanup revives West Virginia waterways and extracts rare earth elements
Once-lifeless streams across West Virginia are being revived by community-led efforts to treat coal mine pollution, which is now also yielding valuable rare earth metals.
In short:
- Decades of coal mining left streams across West Virginia acidic and contaminated with heavy metals, turning waterways orange and killing aquatic life. Nonprofit groups have built low-tech treatment systems using limestone and wetlands to neutralize acidity and trap metals like iron and aluminum.
- A new state-operated facility at the abandoned Richard Mine uses higher-tech methods to clean up polluted water and recover rare earth elements, crucial for clean energy and military technologies. These elements dissolve naturally in acidic mine runoff, making them cheaper to extract than from raw ore.
- Rare earth recovery could help fund future cleanups, as prices remain high. The effort is also boosting local economies through outdoor recreation and tourism, which now support more jobs than coal mining in the state.
Key quote:
“If we look to the future, coal is a much smaller part of the overall energy picture in the country and it’s unlikely to ever regain the same level that it once had.”
— Dave Bassage, program coordinator at New River Conservancy
Why this matters:
Acid mine drainage is a persistent legacy of coal mining that continues to contaminate streams and groundwater across Appalachia. It forms when exposed pyrite reacts with air and water to create sulfuric acid, dissolving toxic metals into waterways. The result is not just ecological damage — it also threatens drinking water for rural communities and corrodes infrastructure. But the same pollution causing these problems is now a potential source of rare earth elements, essential for solar panels, electric vehicles, and national defense. With global supply chains under strain, tapping into this accidental resource could be economically and environmentally significant, especially for communities long burdened by extractive industries.
Read more: Coal mine pollution in Canada and the U.S. faces international review
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