US dairy company Horizon Organic has quietly scrapped its commitment to a “carbon positive” supply chain and is embarking on a new climate strategy, Catherine Musulin, head of sustainability, exclusively told AgFunderNews.
Five years ago, the company became the first in the industry to make the commitment, announcing that it would achieve the goal by 2025. The plan largely hinged on buying carbon credits to offset the company’s greenhouse gas emissions. Horizon is now focusing on “systematic transformations across the entire food chain,” Musulin said.
“I didn’t want to just start writing checks for offsets that weren’t as meaningful as using those same dollars to partner with our farmers,” she said. “This puts the accountability on us, rather than buying carbon credits and not doing anything on the ground.”
The strategic shift to carbon “insetting” is considered a more credible climate strategy because a company aims to decarbonize its own supply chains. In contrast, buying carbon offsets from third parties that restore forests, for example, allows companies to continue polluting at the same levels while claiming they are “net-zero” or “carbon positive.”
Horizon Organic quietly sunset its carbon positive goal in 2023, when the company was still owned by Danone. All references to the original goal were removed from packaging, website, and social media channels. Horizon Organic and Wallaby Organic, a yogurt brand, were acquired by the private equity firm Platinum Equity in April 2024. Horizon and Wallaby now operate together under the name Horizon Family Brands.
“We did not make this decision lightly,” Musulin said. “It was rooted in our desire to drive real, measurable change, not just symbolic gestures that you see plastered all over LinkedIn these days.”
Horizon’s new strategy
Horizon Family Brands will announce its new sustainability goals by the end of this year, Musulin said. In early 2026, the company will start disclosing its progress against a new 2024 baseline.
Horizon Organic released a life-cycle analysis of its half gallons of whole milk in 2021, which revealed that about two-thirds of emissions originated from on-farm activities, such as manure management and the methane cows burp. One-third was attributed to subsequent stages of the supply chain, including packaging and transportation. Musulin said that’s still accurate.
The new sustainability strategy will target those activities, Musulin said, as well as enriching farmer livelihoods, elevating quality standards, and making operations more efficient. The company hasn’t established an overall budget for the strategy, but Musulin estimated it would likely be in the millions of dollars.
Horizon Family Brands will help farmers obtain grants and loans, as well as provide technical assistance for organic certification, among other services.
“This isn’t just about the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we’re reducing,” Musulin said. “The regenerative ag metric I track is, How many farmers are we supporting, enabling, resourcing, and powering?”
She added that Horizon Family Brands’ network of more than 400 farmers is already USDA-certified organic. Meeting that standard requires dairy producers to adopt various practices that lower emissions, like planting cover crops to boost soil health and avoiding synthetic pesticides.
The company has also been investing in projects to serve as proof points for its new strategy that will be released in the next few months, Musulin said.
Her team also just overhauled its distribution and transportation system, yielding a “significant carbon emissions reduction” that will be publicized later this year. Horizon Family Brands is also working on elevating efficiency standards among its manufacturing partners.
“When we can clearly see the problems we seek to address—whether that be soil health, biodiversity restoration, water stewardship, food security, food safety, animal welfare, or equity and belonging—we can make decisions based on the most effective impact without overstating our influence in advancing food systems,” Musulin said.
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