Our thinking

Oatly becomes a climate solutions company

23 May, 2025

What if not every business needed to focus on reducing its carbon emissions? It feels strange to say in a world where our bread and butter is helping organisations to reduce their carbon emissions. However, we’re not talking about moving away from Net Zero, in fact, we’re talking about leaning towards Global Net Zero.  

The Exponential Roadmap Initiative (ERI) is a climate initiative looking to halve emissions by 2030 by uniting climate solutions. They define climate solutions providers as those companies which replace existing carbon intensive activities with low/no-carbon alternatives, which can be scaled rapidly to reach global net zero.  

Oatly is the first food and drinks company to be defined as a Climate Solutions Company by the ERI. The idea being that, as oat milk is a replacement for the emission intensive dairy alternative, the greater growth Oatly achieves, the greater the decarbonisation globally as people move away from dairy. This doesn’t mean Oatly can just sit back and not think about its own emissions. In fact, the criteria for becoming certified as a climate solution are strict. Among other things, Oatly must still report emissions, have targets in place and a carbon action plan. It’s just that their plan is all about reducing emissions intensity per litre of milk rather than overall total emissions. 

So what does this mean for most companies? Not a huge amount! Long-term SBTi targets may still need to be absolute. However, integrating more climate solutions within your direct operations and value chain may make them a little easier to meet! 

By Anna Heis