Feature image: Taylor Farms staff at their TRUE Platinum location in Gonzales, California. Photo credit: Taylor Farms.

Decarbonization can be defined as any measure by which greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, CO2 and methane, CH4) are reduced to protect the climate. It’s the new, planet-cooling business environmental buzz, and TRUE-certified businesses are demonstrating leadership in accomplishing it.

While LEED-certified buildings often reduce carbon emissions greatly from a baseline, using construction and energy best practices well known in the industry, relatively few businesses have included zero waste in their decarbonization portfolios. Proof is mounting, however, that most waste diversion activities create quantifiable greenhouse gas emissions savings, and nowhere is that more evident than with responsible organics management—composting and anaerobic digestion (AD—a process in which microbial communities break down or digest organic matter like manure and food waste, in the absence of oxygen, usually in a sealed vessel called a reactor).

“TRUE-certified breweries, wineries, farms and dairies are all pursuing composting to sequester carbon and decarbonize the world,” says Stephanie Barger, TRUE director of market transformation and development, citing zero waste leaders like Taylor Farms, Ippolito International and Straus Family Creamery.

Grant Jampolsky, CEO and co-founder of Bio CoTech Americas, an industrial in-vessel compost/renewable energy systems producer, and Sue Beets Atkinson, global vice president of sustainability for SBM Management Services, recently reported to the following to the TRUE Advisory Council: “Using EPA data, we compared various sustainability projects’ carbon impacts, based on the cost to implement each project, and the data suggests that composting is the most cost-effective. Combine these findings with the tangible nature of waste management and potential for staff buy-in and it becomes hard to imagine why the available technologies and practices are not more widely pursued.”

Across the U.S., food scraps are becoming less and less subject to wanton disposal, via legislation and emerging diversion opportunities. California (SB 1383), Washington state (House Bill 1799), the Portland metro area and Washington, D.C., are mandating organics diversion, and communities in 15 other states have begun implementing compost programs and achieving decarbonization.

Halting climate offender methane is a big motivation, and it’s ill-managed organic waste that creates it. In fact, the nonprofit CarbonMapper project led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is revealing that many landfills are “super-emitters” in urgent need of modernization to capture it.

In January 2023, at the North American Leaders Summit to combat the climate crisis, U.S. President Biden, Mexican President Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed to developing a Food Loss and Waste Reduction Action Plan by the end of 2025, outlining efforts to cut food loss and waste in half by 2030.

A manure separator machine in front of a field where cows graze. — The biodigester at the Straus Dairy Farm converts organic manure waste into renewable electricity and organic fertilizer. Photo courtesy of Straus Dairy Farm.

Climate hero agriculture

Food and dairy farmers and food and beverage producers have moved to the forefront in protecting the climate through decarbonization. In January 2023, University of California, Davis agricultural economics researchers issued a report stating that the state’s dairy producers are on track for meeting a 40% methane emissions reduction goal by 2030, by following a four-part strategy that includes methane capture and utilization via anaerobic digestion.

Because agriculture is an industrial sector that can change from net carbon emitter to net carbon sequesterer, the U.S. Composting Council, the California Compost Coalition, the Association of Compost Producers, the Marin Carbon Project and others are devoting vital resources to aiding businesses in adding composting to their sustainability plans, returning soil amendments to replenish and nourish farmland and ranches, with practices that enhance carbon sequestration.

The TRUE rating system offers seven credits for such efforts under the “Compost/Re-Earth” category, and one more under “Closed Loop” (Purchase compost from a local source):

Collect compostables separately from other materials.
Compost, digest or reuse yard trimmings.
Compost food scraps and/or soiled paper on-site.
Compost food scraps and/or soiled paper off-site.
Utilize/reuse compost or mulch on-site.
Implement other process technologies for organic materials.
Use compost from site for on-site food production.

TRUE + WARM = Decarbonization

One more critical TRUE credit to complete the decarbonization achievements equation can be found under the “Zero Waste Reporting” category: “Generate climate impact report using the U.S. EPA WARM Model.”

Beginning in the 1990s, the U.S. EPA began building a multifaceted back-end database, eventually creating a Waste Reduction Model (WARM) that enables users to enter pounds or tons of waste into a macro-enabled Excel spreadsheet. The model then provides estimates of potential emissions reductions from baseline and alternative practices—adopting source reduction, recycling, anaerobic digestion or composting—in lieu of combustion or landfilling.

WARM model sample estimates

100 tons:

Food waste composted, not landfilled: saves 72 metric tons of carbon equivalent
Dairy waste anaerobically digested, not wasted: saves 61 metric tons of carbon equivalent
Mixed recyclables recycled, not disposed: reduces 287 metric tons of carbon equivalent

A worker monitors spinach greens moving along a conveyor belt — Taylor Fresh Foods in Salinas, California, diverts around 95% of its waste while supplying fresh vegetables to U.S. markets. Photo credit: Taylor Farms.

TRUE and WARM decarbonization success stories

Taylor Fresh Foods and Ippolito International

With three TRUE Platinum facilities encompassing more than 540,000 square feet, the Taylor Fresh Foods family in Salinas, California, is diverting 94–96% of their waste and reducing associated emissions, while supplying more than 4 million pounds of healthy, fresh organic vegetables, veggie trays, salads and stir fry kits to U.S. markets weekly.

The farm’s Salinas and Castroville neighbor, Ippolito International, one of North America’s largest suppliers of fresh Brussels sprouts, has achieved TRUE Gold certification at two sites, recycling 590 tons of cardboard and plastic and diverting more than 10,000 tons of organic byproduct through animal feed and composting (91.81% and 97.4% diversion).

Ippolito Farms began pursuing a zero waste goal and TRUE certification in 2016, and Taylor Farms in 2017, both supported by Nikki Cossio, founder and CEO of Measure to Improve (MTI), along with team members Kieran Ficken, director of sustainability programs, and Corinne Van Dyke, senior sustainability program manager. The MTI team helps growers, shippers, packers and processors measure and improve on a wide range of sustainability efforts, including water, energy, waste, greenhouse gas emissions and sustainable packaging.

A facility worker in plastic sterile clothing changes a waste bin liner — A facilities professional at the TRUE Platinum Taylor Farms facility in Gonzales, California. Photo credit: Taylor Farms.

MTI's data-tracking efforts, including those of its five clients with completed TRUE certifications and others (2015–2022), reveal more than 199,809 tons of waste prevented, recycled or composted and not landfilled, slashing associated carbon dioxide emissions equivalents (CO2e) of 69,516 metric tons, resulting in $2.34 million in avoided disposal costs and recycling rebates.

To leverage these results, Cossio and her team train others in zero waste: More than 2,000 people, including Taylor and Ippolito, have received it. Typically, MTI endeavors to transfer all program responsibilities to farm staff. “My proudest moment is the fact that they are still maintaining their zero waste certifications, and in some cases taking the programs even further: [It’s a] win-win,” Cossio says.

“We look to the TRUE structure to guide both zero waste and (regular) waste reduction programs. We ask them to think about the same steps: collect data, understand diversion opportunities, prioritize,” Ficken says. “And we use the WARM tool. The beauty of WARM is that it’s relatively easy and can be used for TRUE certification,” she added.

“It’s not challenging to use the WARM tool,” and providing a TRUE credit for using it incentivizes businesses to try it out, VanDyke says. “Then they see connection of zero waste to decarbonization.”

Straus Family Creamery

Straus Family Creamery was the first 100% certified organic creamery in the U.S., and sustainability as a philosophy is built into the company’s production of milk, yogurt, butter and ice cream products in Petaluma and Rohnert Park, California.

Joseph Button, vice president of sustainability and strategic impact, has been supporting zero waste at Straus for six years. In 2018, the creamery reached 92% waste diversion, and both the creamery and the company’s office and warehouse site received TRUE Gold certification.

“Utilizing the TRUE zero waste standard has made us aware of an ever-evolving list of opportunities to improve our zero waste operations. This includes using the WARM model to track GHGs associated with organic waste diversion,” Button says.

A young woman holds up a chalkboard with information on compost — Left: Office administrator Sara Flores hauls lunch room food scraps to the compost bin while showing off the staff composting guide. Right: Warehouse supervisor Edgar Guerrero monitors a pallet of reusable milk crates. Straus milk crates are returned into operation over 98% of the time and help avoid the source-intensive consumption of corrugated containers. Photos courtesy of Straus Creamery.

A man in a jacket stands in front of reusable shipping crates in a warehouse — Left: Office administrator Sara Flores hauls lunch room food scraps to the compost bin while showing off the staff composting guide. Right: Warehouse supervisor Edgar Guerrero monitors a pallet of reusable milk crates. Straus milk crates are returned into operation over 98% of the time and help avoid the source-intensive consumption of corrugated containers. Photos courtesy of Straus Creamery.

Creamery operations capture and divert about 300,000 pounds of organic waste from landfills and wastewater treatment systems annually, which are then used for animal feed, composted or upcycled into renewable energy. Applying the WARM model, Button estimates that Straus Family Creamery composting practices reduce GHG emissions by 24 metric tons of carbon equivalent each year.

Organic waste reduction activities stretch well beyond the Straus Family Creamery’s two certified facilities. The company’s biggest environmental impacts occur at the 12 organic dairy farms that supply Straus with milk, so dairy farmers have become key partners. Dairy farm partners are identifying opportunities to install small-scale anaerobic digesters on farms over the next 10 years, which will transform milk waste and cow manure into biogas, generating on-site renewable electricity and reducing farm methane emissions.

The byproduct (“digestate”) can be returned to the pastures to build soil—a circular process that will enable Straus Family Creamery to achieve its goal of becoming a carbon-neutral dairy.

“This digester initiative is central to Straus’ 2030 goal of having its farming network achieve on-farm net carbon neutrality, a global first which Straus calls the 'Climate Positive Dairy Model',” Button said.

“If successful, Straus and its network of dairy suppliers could be mitigating 7,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year,” Button said.

Businesses win at decarbonization with TRUE certification