Oat-milk giant Oatly is
throwing down the transparency gauntlet to ‘Big Dairy’ by offering to give away
free (paid by Oatly) advertising space if dairy brands are willing to publicly
disclose answers to a few (68 total) questions about their climate footprint.
It’s part of a new ad campaign that highlights Oatly’s recent move to include a
climate footprint label
across several of its products in the US. The Oatly ads will be featured in
this Sunday’s NY Times, LA Times and Washington Post; and on Monday
will be on billboards in Times Square and in Hollywood in Los Angeles.
The ads feature two placements — one for Oatly, and the other reserved for any
dairy company that wants to take them up on their offer.
Image credit: Oatly
To redeem the free advertising, the company will need to visit
OatlyClimateFootprintChallenge.com
and answer the same questions Oatly did to receive its climate certification;
Oatly swears it will make good on its free-advertising promise to participating
companies.
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Hear how Mars and its Ben's Original brand are working with Delta Harvest to greatly reduce water use in rice cultivation while improving crop yields, at the SB Regenerative Ag Summit — Thursday, Oct. 17, at SB'24 San Diego.
As Armando Turco, Executive
Creative Director for Oatly in North America, explains: “The ultimate goal of
the campaign is to advocate for transparency on the impact products have on the
planet, so consumers can make more informed purchases. Our product climate
footprint numbers started rolling out earlier this year and we wanted to bring
further awareness to that. This is a standard-setting move on the part of Oatly;
but it only really works for consumers if other companies follow suit — so,
we’re encouraging other companies to do just that. We thought a first call to
the dairy industry to join us in publishing product climate footprints made
natural sense.”
Climate facts on cow’s milk vs Oatly (more info here)
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According to a study in the journal
Nature, roughly
one-third of global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from the food
system.
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According to a recent study, Oatly Barista sold in the US uses 71
percent less water to produce and has a 46 percent lower climate impact than
comparable cow’s milk.*
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Oatly’s climate footprint
labeling can
be found on select US products and most recently was added to Oatgurt to
enable shoppers to compare the climate impact of products in the grocery
aisle.
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By 2029, Oatly has pledged to reduce its climate footprint per liter of
Oatly by 70 percent and all product facilities will meet “future factory”
criteria, putting sustainable and efficient practices at the forefront of
its initiatives.
A recent Oatly Flash
Poll
of over 1,100 US consumers (14 and up) found that more than half (54 percent) of
Gen Z and almost half (49 percent) of Millennials prefer plant-based milk to
cow’s milk, while nearly one-third (31 percent) of Gen Z describe cow′s milk as
“basic/uncool.” And for those who still enjoy cow’s milk and just can’t get down
with plant-based versions, emerging alternatives such as Perfect Day’s
animal-free
dairy
provide the same taste, texture and nutritional profile as milk (because it is milk) from a farm-raised cow
without any of the deleterious environmental impacts.
Those who want to know more about Oatly’s climate footprint can visit
Oatly.com/Footprint;
and haters can head to FckOatly.com.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published May 5, 2023 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST