Sustainability Goals
Cargill's Starches, Sweeteners & Texturizers business has the purpose of unlocking nature’s potential through the ingredients that we manufacture and provide. We defined this effort across three pillars: “Nature’s People,” “Nature’s Planet,” and “Nature’s Product.”
Nature’s People
We empower farmers, partners and the communities in which we operate at all levels of productivity. This helps them to strengthen agricultural supply chains in an economically and environmentally sustainable way.
Farmer livelihood
Farm Sustainability Assessment
We assist our farmers to achieve raw material -responsible sourcing certification levels across priority raw materials. This includes Cargill dedicated and unique programs (such as the Red Seaweed Promise™) and voluntary verification of sustainability performance at a farm level such as the industry-aligned Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA)*. Where applicable, this will be to FSA Silver level or above.
Engaging with Farmers
We aim to engage with over 7,000 farmers and producers annually (many of whom are women and smallholders) across our global supply chains. Engagement involves providing training them in sustainable practices e.g. agricultural productivity through the better application of fertilizers. 1000 Farmers Endless Prosperity is one example of these programs.
Community engagement
Cargill contributes 2% of our global pre-tax earnings to help advance social and environmental impact priorities, and support local communities. Cargill businesses and facilities and their employees also donate through more than 350 employee-led Cargill Cares Councils worldwide. These councils provide support for local and global charitable & civil organizations, programs such as food relief agencies, school & youth programs, as well as environmental projects.
Nature’s Planet
We aim to reduce and enhance the impact that we have on the planet across a number of aspects of our global supply chains and operations with a goal to be net positive.
Climate
Scope 1 & 2 Commitment
Cargill has a goal of reducing emissions from our operations, Scope 1 & 2*, by 10% by 2025.
Cargill's Starches, Sweeteners & Texturizers reached Cargill’s science-based target of reducing scope 1 & 2 carbon emissions by 10% two years earlier than our 2025 commitment. In Europe, we continue to set the bar higher and now aim to reduce our business’ Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 15%. This will be achieved through the implementation of initiatives such as ISO 50 001, energy efficiency measures, technical solutions, cogeneration and securing new renewable energy sources such as wind.
Scope 3 Commitment
Cargill has a goal of reducing emissions in our supply chain, Scope 3**, by 30% per ton of product sold by 2030 vs. 2017.
Cargill's Starches, Sweeteners & Texturizers aims to achieve this by establishing regenerative agriculture across the countries where we source our corn and wheat.
Wind Farm to Accelerate Green Energy
A great example of Cargill’s big strides in the fight against climate change, is our partnering with Vattenfall and Windpark Hanze to accelerate green energy transition by building a wind farm in the Netherlands. This wind farm is expected to reduce carbon emissions by approximately 350,000 metric tons a year, which is equivalent to providing electricity for more than 95,000 homes in the Netherlands per year once construction is complete. The wind farm is expected to power more than 90% of Cargill’s grid-based electrical consumption in the Netherlands.
Transport Optimization to Reduce Carbon Emission
Cargill's Starches, Sweeteners & Texturizers optimizes inbound and outbound transport by promoting lower emission modes of transport and transforming our customer distribution network, driving transport km reduction.
Cargill's Starches, Sweeteners & Texturizers has implemented the use of 100% biofuel on some high volume lanes and reach 90% CO2 emission reduction when compared to regular fuel.
*Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy.
**Scope 3 emissions are all indirect emissions that occur in the value chain, including both upstream and downstream.
Land & water
Land
Cargill has a commitment to transform our agriculture supply chains to be deforestation-free by 2030 associated with our high-risk commodities such as soy. As a signatory of the Corporate Statement of Purpose, Cargill will now be deforestation-free for soy by 2025 in the priority biomes of the Amazon, Cerrado, and Chaco in South America. In addition, Cargill will be deforestation-free and achieve no peatland conversion in palm globally by 2025.
Water
Cargill’s global ambition is to enable a water positive impact across our operations, supply chains, and communities by 2030.
Nature’s Product
We provide nature-based products with a commitment to reducing our carbon footprint and assisting our customers to reducing their impact.
Low carbon ingredients
We aim to provide ingredients with reduced and enhanced environmental footprints – net positive. This means that we will aim to establish ingredients which put back more into society, the environment and the global economy than our ingredients take out. Using traditional farming methods, farmers emit carbon while producing crops. However, by producing crops through the use of regenerative agriculture practices, they can capture more carbon than they emit. Through our regenerative agriculture program, we are working to connect farmers to markets while helping them prepare for the future of farming. We make it easier for farmers to adopt new soil health practices by providing compensation, access to technical support, simple enrollment and data collection and transparent measurement, as well as verification options.
Biobased innovations
We are both investing in and producing biobased products, such as biofuels, which can reduce carbon emissions.
Transparency & traceability through supply chains
We aim to achieve this through clear demonstrated impact (supported by extensive monitoring systems and third-party audits) on the environment across our portfolio, and through the establishment of practices such as regenerative agriculture. This delivers both carbon insetting and offsetting***, and in turn enhances farmer productivity & profitability, as well as water & biodiversity conservation measures.
Across priority products, we will provide transparency and traceability on where the raw material comes from, and the carbon emission footprint. This is achieved through extensive data supply chain systems which record commodity flows through our supply chain and Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) which track our carbon emissions from farm to factory to transportation.
***Offsetting harnesses the positive impact of a GHG reduction activity totally outside of a company’s direct or indirect operations. Insetting refers specifically to GHG reductions that are directly related, either by geography, production, or commodity.
Related information
More about our Sustainability efforts in Starches, Sweeteners and Texturizers