World’s largest oat milk producer joins climate campaign

Oatly, the world’s largest producer of oat milk, is sending a new message to its consumers: Most people want their governments to take action on climate change.

Splashed on the side of the Swedish company’s cartons is messaging from the “89 Percent Project”, a campaign launched by Covering Climate Now, a global journalism nonprofit.

Newsrooms traditionally try not to associate with organised advocacy efforts, but the unorthodox campaign has been gaining traction. Participating news organisations have amplified research that 80 per cent to 89 per cent of people worldwide want their governments to confront climate change.

Oatly’s new cartons were first released in Sweden and have since been rolled out to other European nations, including Belgium and Germany. The cartons are expected to be on US shelves by January, said Caroline Reid, senior sustainability director at Oatly.

“Companies should be taking much more responsibility not only in reducing their own environmental footprint but really working out how they can use their platform to drive a positive future,” Reid said at an event last week during New York Climate Week.

Behind the ‘89 Percent Project’

In addition to producing stories on climate change, Covering Climate Now promotes reporting on the issue through journalism trainings, newsroom collaborations, and press awards. It launched the “89 Percent Project” last year and describes it as a global collaborative journalism initiative.

The project takes its name from a 2024 study in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Climate Change. Based on a survey of nearly 130,000 people across 125 countries, the study found that 89 per cent of people want intensified political action on climate change.

Most people who want climate action don’t realise they are in the “silent majority,” said Mark Hertsgaard, executive director of Covering Climate Now. But that is beginning to change as “elements of civil society all around the world pick up this 89 per cent message and spread it themselves”.

The project launched with several media partners, including The Guardian, Agence France-Presse, and El País. In April, Japanese TV stations said that over the next two years, they would air announcements about how the majority of Japanese people want stronger climate action. In June, in a separate initiative, 136 Japanese news outlets also began spreading this messaging via social media platforms, news releases, and other forms of public communication.

“We felt that we, and our fellow journalists, were really missing the story here,” said Hertsgaard, adding that he believed that the industry was inadvertently “misrepresenting a big part of the climate story, which is that most people around the world want this tackled”.

Climate message boost

Oatly’s milk carton campaign is subtle, especially when compared to the more well-known 1980s US milk carton campaign that put photos of missing children on cartons to spread awareness about their cases.

The new cartons feature two stacked text boxes on one side of the carton.

The much smaller top box reads: “Politicians! These eleven words represent people not interested in climate action.” The lower box, which takes up most of the carton’s side, has an 89-word message that makes the case that most people want their governments to take climate action and that doing so could lead to political wins.

Reid, with Oatly, first read about the climate project in The Guardian. As a company selling alternatives to cow milk, she said the project “aligns with what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to engage people and make them want to do something different”.

Every organisation, political party, and brand can play a bigger role in contributing to societal net zero, meaning as much carbon being absorbed as is released into the atmosphere, and driving the transition to renewable energy, Reid said.

Covering Climate Now’s project straddles a tightrope between advocacy and journalism, which experts say has pros and cons.

“The economic failures of so many news outlets have led to a rise in independent journalism that operates outside the norms established by legacy media outlets,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “There is plenty of room for advocacy in journalism.”

Clay Calvert, who specialises in First Amendment and freedom of expression issues at the University of Florida, said two dangers arise when journalism organisations partner with companies.

The first is that the journalism group will pull its punches and self-censor negative information about the corporate partner. The second is that the journalism organisation will favourably portray its corporate partner in news coverage.

“There really needs to be a wall of separation in any newsroom between the interests of the journalism entity, including its readers and viewers, and those of its corporate partners,” Calvert said. “Sometimes creating and maintaining that separation is easier said than done.”

No money has changed hands between Covering Climate Now and Oatly, according to Hertsgaard, who called the company an “ally”.

“As a journalist, I feel like we have to have the courage to not just report the facts, but to draw the connections,” Hertsgaard said. “Now, if that amounts to advocacy, then that’s an advocacy I’m comfortable with.”

AP