The announcement of Sweetgreen salad chain that it’s adding beef to its menu led to strong reactions online, with customers questioning the company’s carbon neutral plans
Salad chain Sweetgreen is adding steak to its menu, an announcement that led to strong reactions online, with customers questioning how that would impact the company’s carbon neutral plans.
Founded in 2007 and known as a fast-casual spot serving salads and bowls, Sweetgreen says it will be carbon neutral by 2027 — meaning it plans to offset its own emissions by putting in place strategies that also remove carbon from the atmosphere.
But beef production is incredibly resource-intensive and a contributor to climate change. It’s the largest agricultural source of greenhouse gases globally, emitting massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere, and requires extensive land use.
Sweetgreen’s rationale for the controversial caramelized, garlic-flavored steak menu addition this week includes using regenerative farming. The chain also says carbon offsets are part of its pledge to combat climate change and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
A Sweetgreen spokesperson referred request for comment to its menu expansion details.
Regenerative agriculture means farming and ranching in a way that not only produces food from a landscape, but also sees that landscape improve ecologically, said Jason Rowntree, co-director of the Michigan State University Center for Regenerative Agriculture.
