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Can Mondelēz hit net-zero by 2050 without plant-based dairy? ‘Probably not’

Mondelēz International will need to make successful products with plant-based ingredients if it is to meet its long-term climate commitments, it says.

Dairy ingredients account for around 16% of the Oreo, Cadbury, Milka and Toblerone maker’s total greenhouse gas emissions footprint. The short-term approach to mitigate some of these emissions is to focus on reductions at the production and processing levels.

However, to meet the company’s science-based net-zero targets for 2050, more reformulation and substitution of dairy ingredients like milk are likely to be necessary.

With brands like Dairy Milk and Milka, the use of plant-based alternatives to dairy is “not necessarily our first ‘go to’” when reducing emissions, explained Catherine Burgeat, senior director for sustainability in Europe at Mondelēz, during a discussion on pathways to net-zero at the Sustainable Foods 2026 conference in London earlier this year.

Asked by Ingredients Network whether the company can reach net-zero without adopting more plant-based options, Burgeat said “probably not. But net-zero is 2050,” she added, and “our brands are anchored in dairy”.

Indeed, early efforts to include plant-based alternatives, initially to reduce fat and sugar content, are said to be a “slow burn”, according to the manufacturer’s public announcements to date. This includes a vegan option for its iconic Cadbury Dairy Milk, the Cadbury Plant Bar.

The company’s reformulation attempts so far have, in Burgeat’s words, “not been picked up as much as we’d hoped for”.

Reducing emissions at the farm level

For now the focus is on “doing as much as we can” to reduce emissions from dairy production, she said. A zero carbon cow may not be possible, she added, but there are opportunities to reduce emissions at the farm level.

While in the UK, Burgeat said she had visited dairy suppliers near Chippenham.

“We will stick to dairy for now,” she said. “Dairy decarbonisation is about animal welfare,” she added, with the aim for cows to live “longer, healthy lives” in order to cut emissions.

The most recent Mondelēz ESG report, published in 2025, explained: “Animal

welfare is linked to the climate impact of dairy farming: healthy productive animals can produce lower emissions. We are therefore working with farmers to help decrease emissions and improve animal welfare.”

The report added: “Dairy is an area in which we have limited scale within the industry, but an important focus area in our carbon footprint.”

The snack manufacturer said it is working with farmers supplying its core brands Cadbury Dairy Milk, Milka, and Philadelphia, and closely collaborating with strategic processors.

“Thanks to first tracking their CO2e [equivalent] emissions and then developing action plans to reduce them, some strategic suppliers have successfully completed their baselines and are delivering lower carbon intensity compared to their base year,” the ESG report reads.

Practices include feed sources, fertilisers, slurry usage, herd health, and yield from forage. Like many major food and drink manufacturers, Mondelēz is also investing in regenerative agriculture approaches in order to reduce emissions, protect biodiversity and improve resilience across key commodities like dairy, wheat and cocoa.

Indirect land-use change emissions from dairy – that is, those arising from raw materials such as soy which is used in cattle feed – are also being tracked.

“We buy the majority of our dairy ingredients from suppliers who buy from farmers who, in turn, make individual decisions about what to feed their cows. Despite these challenges, we are engaging our suppliers with the aim of supporting moves to help achieve deforestation-free supplies of cattle feed across the dairy sector,” the ESG report reads.

At the last count, in 2024, Mondelēz produced 30.47 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (MtCO2e), which was 9% lower than 2023 and 12% lower than the 2018 baseline. The company’s target for 2030, which has been approved by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), is a 35% reduction.