2024 Year in Review

By Glenn Hurowitz, Founder & CEO

I’m proud to share with you highlights of the extraordinary impact for Nature and climate that Mighty Earth has had in 2024.

I like to think we’ve had a big impact year-in, year-out since our founding. But this past year saw transformation on a new scale, with highlights including unprecedented commercial action to stop deforestation in the Amazon and other ecosystems; the launch of a new initiative to drive climate action in the protein industry; efforts to protect and restore ecosystems in Southeast Asia; and our new rewilding initiative in the United States.

I hope you can take pride in helping make the below possible. I also hope you will consider a tax-deductible year-end donation to support this work continuing into the new year and beyond. Our goal going into 2025 is to make transformative environmental action inevitable by baking it into private sector action that can endure regardless of political change. We need your support to make it happen.

You can donate here. Thank you for making Mighty Earth into a powerful force for Nature.

Transforming Protein

The meat and dairy industries cause more deforestation than the rest of agriculture combined, and more climate pollution than the entire global transportation sector. Mighty Earth is breaking the link between agriculture and deforestation, tackling methane and other climate pollution, and driving a shift to plant-based and other sustainable protein.

Protecting Ecosystems

• In response to our campaign, the world’s largest meat company has dropped 705 suppliers linked to deforestation – sending a powerful signal throughout the meat industry that destroying native ecosystems would lead to a loss of market access.
• JBS agreed to use real time data to assess deforestation and block suppliers.
• Carrefour adopted its new Forests Transparency Program, bringing an unprecedented level of visibility to both retailers and the meat industry.
• Mighty Earth landed a front-page New York Times exposé about how a cattle rancher used one of the chemical compounds in Agent Orange to destroy more than 200,000 acres of forest in an attempt to evade satellite detection, while JBS and other cattle companies were buying his cattle.
• Cattle giant Marfrig announced plans to accelerate its target date to eliminate destruction of nature across its supply chains from 2030 to 2025.
• Our undercover investigation exposed how Cargill and JBS teamed up to import soy linked to deforestation into the Port of Liverpool in the UK, and then send it on to more than 800 chicken suppliers across the country.
• Our partner Marcel Gomes of Reporter Brasil won the Goldman Prize (the “environmental Nobel”) for his brave and successful investigative work on Mighty Earth’s campaign that resulted in some of the first supply chain actions in the meat industry.
• We worked with allies to defend the Amazon Soy Moratorium, one of the world’s most successful forest conservation policies.
• We launched a new Soy & Cattle Deforestation Tracker that ranks ten of the world’s biggest soy and meat companies on their links to cases of deforestation in threatened Brazilian biomes, such as the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Pantanal.

Tackling climate pollution and shifting to sustainable protein

• Mighty Earth worked with 15 US senators (both Republicans and Democrats) on a bipartisan letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging a delay in JBS’ planned IPO due to climate and governance concerns. We held senior level meetings with the SEC to discuss these concerns.
• The IPO has been postponed to at least 2025.
• New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued JBS for fraudulent climate claims, using Mighty Earth and allies’ research into the company’s greenwashing and false climate claims.
• We launched an expanded methane and sustainable protein campaign with programs in Latin America, Asia, the United States, and Europe.
• Carrefour, Sodexo, Jumbo, Lidl Germany, Co-op, and other major retailers expanded plant-based protein offerings, set new targets for reaching up to 60% plant-based protein by 2030, agreed to ensure plant proteins are offered at the same price as meat, or ensured better placement for plant-based protein offerings on their shelves.

Forests and Wildlife

Mighty Earth works to end deforestation, generate large-scale finance to make Nature worth more alive than dead, and protect and restore endangered species to abundance.

• After we drew attention to deforestation at scale, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry issued a letter ordering Indonesia’s largest commercial forest destroyer to end its destruction.
• We marshaled concern from senior levels of many governments, investors, and private sector companies about the world’s largest deforestation project – 7 million acres of planned ecosystem destruction for Indonesia’s food and energy estates. I was able to meet with Indonesia’s chief Climate Envoy (and President Prabowo’s brother) as well as the new Ministers of Forestry and Environment to discuss channeling this development onto degraded land – which can also facilitate their exciting plans to restore more than 30 million acres of degraded lands. This is one of our top priorities in the new year.
• We supported the Campaign for Nature in an effort to boost finance for conservation and restoration around the world in support of the goal of protecting 30% of the Earth by 2030.
• We convened the palm oil, rubber, and paper industries in Southeast Asia to generate expanded private sector investment in restoration and conservation of previously deforested land– healing the damage of decades of deforestation by these industries.
• We documented the alarming increased risk to forests from Asian policies to incentivize burning forests (known as “biomass” in the industry) for electricity.
• Japan’s SMBC Financial Group, one of Japan’s three megabanks, updated its sustainability policy to address wood biomass. ​The two other megabanks, a life insurance company, and two financial companies have since followed SMBC’s lead with stronger biomass policies.

Policy

The EU Deforestation Regulation was postponed by one year, an unfortunate delay in a breakthrough conservation policy. However, in the face of conventional wisdom from most insiders that changing politics meant the substance of the law was on the chopping block, Mighty Earth played a decisive role alongside coalition partners in beating back efforts to gut the law.

• We organized letters and statements from several of the world’s largest companies in support of the regulation; sent messages to national governments in France, the Netherlands, and Spain; contacted every member of the European Parliament; and attended multiple votes and strategy sessions in Brussels.
• We worked with major companies around the world to prepare their supply chains for implementation, driving positive change on the ground before the regulation even comes into force.
• We worked with smallholder agriculture producers – whom EUDR opponents inaccurately blamed for deforestation – to marshal support from the leading smallholder agriculture producers and Indigenous groups in South America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.
• With key allies, we commissioned and released multinational poll results demonstrating popular support for the EUDR.

Rewilding

Mighty Earth is working to restore keystone species of wildlife around the world, with an initial focus on welcoming mountain lions back home to the Eastern United States.

• We completed detailed scoping research to determine the best states to launch our campaign.
• We worked with the Cougar Research Collaborative, Panthera, and other partners to develop strong conservation plans.
• We hosted a fundraising event to build the resources we need for the campaign.
• We are planning to deploy the campaign in key states in the first quarter of 2025.

Decarbonization

Heavy industries like steel, aluminum, cement, and minerals cause about one quarter of global climate pollution, but have received relatively little attention. Mighty Earth works to rapidly transform these industries to deliver 100% carbon-free production.

• In 2024, we supported the Lead the Charge campaign to assess 18 automakers against 80+ indicators to evaluate their efforts to eliminate pollution and human rights abuses from their supply chains. All but one of the companies saw an improvement in their performance this year; and U.S. automakers (including those that are the focus of Mighty Earth’s campaigns) are making the fastest progress.​
• Mighty Earth worked with Korean partners on a global campaign that succeeded in persuading Hyundai to cut ties with a notorious aluminum supplier heavily reliant on coal.
• We launched major effort to drive decarbonization of minerals with an initial focus on ending coal use and protecting forests for nickel. We testified before the US Trade Representative, conducted multiple on the ground investigations with top-tier journalists, and held senior level briefings with policymakers around the world.

It’s a lot! But it’s real substance that I think will continue to drive action on Nature and climate even in the face of political headwinds – including through private sector and state action.

We will face real challenges in our ongoing pursuit of this goal, but with our outstanding team, strategy, and significant momentum, I feel hope. Thank you for making Mighty Earth – this force for Nature – possible.