Addressing climate change

 

We also are addressing climate change by investing in a variety of innovative energy improvement solutions, including:

• Reclaimed methane. At our beef and pork plants, Cargill reclaims methane from our waste water lagoons and turns it into biogas to fuel our plant boilers. Biogas now displaces 20-25 percent of natural gas demand at all eight of our U.S. meat processing plants, while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by more than 1.3 million metric tons in the last four years. 
• Renewable biomass and biogas. We utilize renewable biomass and biogas to significantly reduce the amount of fossil fuels we use. The amount of renewable biomass we used in 2009 would be enough to power the complete energy needs of a town of 100,000 people in the western world. 
• Co-generate electrical demand. We co-generate seven percent of our total electrical demand globally. Co-generation means producing both heat and power from a single process. For example, the turbine that creates electricity for Cargill’s Amsterdam oilseeds plant generates excess heat, which we use to create steam for heating, drying and vacuums. These efforts not only improve energy efficiency (15 percent at the Amsterdam plant), they also help cut energy costs for our businesses. 
• Global organic yogurt leader. Stonyfield Farm has replaced all of its petroleum-based multipack yogurt cups with cups made from plant-based Ingeo™, manufactured by Cargill-owned NatureWorks, LLC. A first for the dairy industry, these cups reduce the package’s greenhouse gas emissions by 48 percent.