Addressing climate change

 

Since 2005, we have supported the development of carbon markets in North America and Europe. Our trading in these markets has contributed to the liquidity essential to the development and future potential of the carbon markets and we developed a number of projects ourselves or in partnership with others.  Our global reach, connection with agriculture and trading expertise puts us in a unique position to support development of efficient carbon markets. 

• Emission credits. We have invested in approximately 80 initiatives under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in an effort to better understand which projects are best suited to generate GHG emissions credits. The CDM is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol. It allows industrialized countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment to invest in ventures that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to emission reductions in their own countries. A sample initiative: in Côte d'Ivoire we turn 200,000 tons of municipal solid waste per year into biogas to produce electricity.
• Emission offsets. Our beef processing facility in High River, Alberta, Canada, collects and uses biogas from the wastewater treatment system to reduce both GHG emissions and natural gas use. Throughout 2009 and 2010, Cargill has sold nearly 500,000 metric tons of emissions offsets originating from this project through the Alberta Offset Registry.
• European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). We trade in the EU ETS with 23 of our European locations regulated under the second phase of the EU ETS. We continually invest in our installations in order to reduce our emissions, through options such as switching from coal and additional investments in energy efficiency. 
• Reducing absolute GHG emissions. We made a voluntary, but legally binding, commitment to reduce absolute GHG emissions from our primary U.S. locations by joining the Chicago Climate Exchange. Cargill has met every annual reduction milestone without purchasing offsets from the exchange. In 2008, (the latest reporting year for which data has been verified) we exceeded our commitment of a 4.5 percent reduction from baseline by achieving a 7.8 percent reduction.