Planet
We seek to improve performance across our operations and supply chains by using resources more efficiently, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and minimizing impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity. These efforts to contribute to Cargill’s corporate targets as well as those of our customers, their customers, and our suppliers.
“Protecting the health of our oceans and ecosystems is fundamental to the future of aquaculture. Programs we have developed over the last 10 years work across our value chains to reduce GHG emissions, reduce impact on biodiversity, improve resource efficiency, and strengthen responsible sourcing of raw materials. By combining science-based approaches with collaboration across the industry, we are driving measurable progress to reduce environmental impact at scale and support a more sustainable aquaculture sector.”
Dave Robb
Director, Sustainability, Cargill Animal Nutrition & Health, Aqua
Planet highlights from 2025
Helping protect the humpback dolphin
Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) are intended to help ensure that important wild-caught species for aqua feed value chains are not overfished at unsustainable levels. But another important objective of a FIP is to reduce the pressures that fishing places on the broader marine ecosystem, including endangered species like the Atlantic humpback dolphin that makes its home in the waters off the west coast of Africa. This dolphin has been classified as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature since 2017.
In part to try and protect species like this, Cargill worked to help establish a FIP for these fisheries near Mauritania with the country’s government and other stakeholders. We did not purchase marine ingredients from Mauritania until after the FIP was established in 2018. Since its launch, the FIP has helped drive reforms in Mauritanian fishing for fishmeal and fish oil, while also supporting the establishment of protected areas to safeguard species like the humpback dolphin.
In 2025, financial support from Cargill helped the FIP to conduct a survey to try and confirm the continued presence of the humpback dolphin in the Banc d’Arguin National Park and surrounding areas, where it had not been spotted in many years. The findings were remarkable. Most of the fishing vessel captains and artisanal fishers surveyed confirmed sightings of the humpback dolphin during 2025. They described the dolphin as rare but present year-round, predominantly in the protected areas that the FIP helped establish.
The Consortium for the Conservation of the Atlantic Humpback Dolphin described the survey as “an extremely important piece of work” and is collaborating with the team on a scientific publication of the findings. Meanwhile, the FIP will continue working to ensure that fishing activities do not negatively impact this population of dolphins.
Scaling SeaFurther in Norway
Feed is typically the largest component of farmed salmon’s carbon footprint. It’s why we created the SeaFurther™ Sustainability program, so we can support our customers’ progress toward their sustainability goals and quantify the impact of our feeds. One of the core ways we do this is by using Cargill’s know-how to reduce the carbon footprint of our feed ingredients, including using carbon insets from regenerative agriculture to help reduce the carbon emissions in terrestrial feed ingredients per tonne of product.
In 2025, we began implementing carbon insets produced through regenerative agriculture into all our salmon feed sold in Norway to help drive scale across our SeaFurther program. In the last quarter of 2025, this led to a 2.5% reduction of CO2 per tonne of feed in all the salmon feed we delivered to customers in Norway. We also introduced byproducts like feather meal and poultry meal selectively in our Norwegian salmon feeds to help diversify the protein supply while also reducing [the] carbon footprint economically.
Testing camelina in Chile
As we work to reduce the carbon footprint of our aqua feeds, we are innovating across ingredients, formulations, and supply chains. After piloting U.S. supply chains for winter camelina – an oilseed crop that can be used in crop rotations – in 2025 we tested incorporating camelina oil into our salmon feed in Chile. Although work is still needed to scale this in the market in an economically feasible way, the results of the tests were promising. Our analysis shows we can achieve a material CO2 reduction for each tonne of camelina oil that replaces other vegetable oils in our salmon feeds in Chile.
Improving our operational impact
We are investing in projects that continue to lower the environmental impact associated with our operations. This includes shifting to different sources of energy and installing more efficient equipment and technologies at our aqua feed mills.
- All the electricity used at our aqua feed mills in Chile, Norway, and Scotland was renewable in 2025.
- At our mills in Ecuador, we switched from fuel oil to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for steam generation. This reduced CO2 from steam production by 17%, equaling approximately 5,500 metric tonnes in 2025.
Planet data for 2025
In coldwater feeds, there has been a large increase in renewable electricity in our overall energy mix, as all our mills in Norway, Chile, and Scotland used renewable electricity in 2025. Additionally, we achieved a 5.98% reduction in energy use per tonne of coldwater feeds since 2020. In warmwater feeds, changes in our portfolio of assets including the sale or closing of certain mills led to an overall decrease in the proportion of renewable energy and electricity. Cargill’s aqua nutrition business overall reduced energy use per tonne of feed by nearly 1% in 2025.
In coldwater feeds, there has been an overall reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions of more than 62% per tonne of feed compared to 2020, a significant decline driven by all our mills in Norway, Chile and Scotland using renewable electricity. Warmwater feeds also achieved a reduction of more than 19% of their Scope 1 and 2 emissions per tonne of feed compared to 2020. Overall, we reduced our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by more than 41% per tonne of product, demonstrating our ambition to more efficiently produce aqua feeds for our customers.
The decrease in GWP for coldwater raw materials including and excluding land use change can be explained by our sourcing strategy and the implementation of regenerative agriculture in our basket of raw materials. The decrease in the GWP for coldwater finished feeds including and excluding land use was primarily driven by all our feed mills in Norway, Chile and Scotland switching to renewable electricity.
