Welcome to Mootopia

Last week, ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s announced a pilot program called Project Mootopia with the mission of cutting down emissions derived from cow burps.

🐄 A deeper dive... Cows and other livestock make up a significant percentage of overall global greenhouse gas emissions (roughly 15%). Cow burps – aka their way of expelling methane – represent 39% of all livestock emissions, and account for ~80% of the dairy industry’s entire carbon footprint.😳

💊 How it works...

• The plan is to give Ben & Jerry’s dairy cows a new red seaweed supplement developed by startup Blue Ocean Barns, which helps digest methane in their gut. 
• A peer-reviewed study published last year found incorporating red seaweed into cows’ diets reduced methane emissions from their burps by up to 80%, even in very small quantities.

📅 Looking ahead… Project Mootopia's first goal is to lower greenhouse gas emissions at 15 Ben & Jerry’s dairy farms to half the industry average by the end of 2024. If successful, the process will be expanded to farms across the ice-cream giant’s global supply chain.