Inside Mighty Earth: Glenn Hurowitz on Transforming the Meat Industry

What if the biggest environmental culprits were hiding in plain sight—right on our dinner plates? While most environmental organizations train their sights on the energy sector, Mighty Earth has taken a bold, and often lonely, stand in confronting the meat industry’s massive role in climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. In this episode, I sit down with Glenn Hurowitz, founder and CEO of Mighty Earth, to unpack why the meat industry typically gets ignored by the environmental movement, and what he thinks needs to be done.

Glenn has spent decades fighting for the planet, from working on federal public policy in Congress to launching powerful corporate campaigns that aim to guide the world’s largest food companies toward more sustainable practices. In our conversation, he explains why mainstream NGOs often shy away from challenging the meat industry, and how Mighty Earth’s strategy—focusing on supply chains, corporate accountability, and the expansion of animal-free proteins—aims to fill that void.

We also dive into Mighty Earth’s campaign to help supermarkets treat plant-based proteins not as niche novelties, but as core offerings. Glenn shares how enhanced meat products (think burgers that are part beef, part mycelium) can be a bigger environmental win than pure plant-based options alone, and why shifting market incentives—not just consumer behavior—is key to making real progress.

If you care about climate action, animal welfare, or food innovation, this episode may challenge you to think bigger—and act smarter—about what it really takes to feed humanity sustainably.

Discussed in this episode

• Glenn and Paul recommend the good work of Food Solutions Action.

• Our past episode with author Mike Grunwald.

• Quorn mycoprotein patties selling in London KFC at near price parity with chicken.

• Glenn references the Sierra Club’s war on coal.

• Mighty Earth’s campaign to guide supermarkets to do better on meat.

• Paul mentions that dozens of species go extinct every day, largely due to meat demand

• JBS’s investment in Spanish cultivated meat production.

• Glenn’s 2007 book, Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party.

• Glenn and Paul both recommend reading Regenesis.

• The UN report on nature finance

Get to Know Glenn Hurowitz

Glenn Hurowitz is the Founder and CEO of Mighty Earth, and has led environmental campaigns around the world for many years. He is a globally recognized leader on forests, agriculture, and climate change, and running strategic campaigns.

He has played a leading role in transforming several industries, including the 90% reduction in deforestation for palm oil, establishment of new policies and practices for the entire rubber industry, and serious action in meat, steel, and elsewhere. In his previous role as Chair of the Forest Heroes campaign, he and his colleagues won the Benny Award from the Business Ethics Network for their successes in transforming global agriculture. He co-founded Chain Reaction Research, which provides major financial institutions with in-depth risk analysis of companies’ sustainability risk.

Glenn advises philanthropies, governments and non-profit organizations on strategy. Glenn has also worked extensively in politics. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed book Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, Politico, The American Prospect.

He’s appeared on many national media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, and NPR. He is a graduate of the Green Corps fellowship and Yale University, worked previously as Managing Director of Waxman Strategies, among other senior roles in the environmental movement.