Planet
We seek to drive improvements across our operations and supply chains, using resources more efficiently and reducing our carbon emissions to lower our impact on ecosystems and the climate throughout our value chains. These efforts enable us to contribute to Cargill’s corporate targets as well as those of our customers, their customers, and our suppliers.
We are committed to responsible leadership when it comes to our aqua nutrition business and its impact on the planet. We are uncovering new solutions to reduce that impact while also engaging boldly with partners to find ways forward on complex issues.
Planet highlights from 2024
Continued efforts through SeaFurther
Feed is typically the largest component of farmed salmon’s footprint. It’s why we created the SeaFurther™ Sustainability program, which seeks to help our customers reduce the footprint of their farmed seafood by at least 30% by 2030. 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 regenerative agriculture practices to help reduce the carbon emissions in terrestrial ingredients per tonne of product. Regenerative practices can help store carbon in the soil while also conveying benefits to soil health, water quality and use, biodiversity, and farmer livelihoods.
In 2024, we continued using regenerative agriculture practices in our SeaFurther program to reduce the emissions from our raw materials. This included working with 86 farmers in the U.K., many of whom have participated in SeaFurther for multiple years. We also purchased inset certificates produced through regenerative agriculture on farms in France and Poland from our third-party-verified internal program Cargill RegenConnect® and from external companies like Agreena. In total, this covered more than 15,700 hectares of wheat and rapeseed that reduced our emissions by 10,200 tonnes of CO2 equivalents. Although this fell short of our 2024 goal, we continue to work with customers to achieve greater scale for SeaFurther as we continue our path to 2030. Meanwhile, we are also investigating bringing SeaFurther to additional species beyond salmon.
Fully renewable energy in Norway
Across our three feed mills in Norway, we have completed the transition to 100% renewable energy, certified with Guarantee of Origin (GoO) documentation. This is projected to lead to a reduction of approximately 40,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions annually. That’s more than half our average annual Scope 1 and 2 emissions globally for coldwater feeds over the past five years.
Reducing water pollution in Vietnam
The Mekong Delta is the heart of Vietnam’s agriculture and aquaculture sectors. Yet climate change and unsustainable farming practices are driving water pollution that threatens the region’s productivity and livelihoods. That’s why we launched Aqua Xanh, an initiative to reduce water pollution by promoting sustainable aqua farming practices in the Mekong Delta. The two-year project will offer training and technical assistance on sustainable practices to farmers in one of the largest shrimp-producing regions of the country, establishing demo farms and helping farmers follow Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) standards. The demo farms will aim to achieve 30% less wastewater volumes and 20% lower nitrogen and phosphorus levels.
ASC recognizes Cargill’s 3S soy program
Cargill’s 3S program in Latin America has long been considered a model for continuous improvement in more sustainable soy production. Soy farmers enrolled in the program in Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay commit to certain criteria, including producing soy that is deforestation- and conversion-free (DCF). They implement best practices on their soy farms related to cultivation, regenerative agriculture, and social compliance. Now, 3S soy from Cargill is accepted for the mandatory raw materials due-diligence process of the ASC Feed Standard. This creates a convenient new supply of ASC-ready, soy-based feed ingredients on the market. Read more about our 3S program here.
Planet data for 2024
In coldwater feeds, there has been a large increase in renewable electricity and a similar reduction of non-renewable electricity, as all our mills in Norway have switched to renewable electricity. This has led to a 3.8% reduction in energy use for coldwater feeds since 2017. In warmwater feeds, an increase in the proportion of non-renewable energy and electricity in our mix can be explained by the reduced availability of these types of energy in local markets due to drought, but also the installation of a backup generator in Ecuador where electricity is not always available. This combined with increased total feed production accounts for the overall increase of energy consumption for our business in 2024.
Improvements to emissions related to our aqua feed production are managed by Cargill’s Environment, Health & Safety team. In coldwater feeds, there has been an overall reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions of 58% compared to 2017, a significant decline driven by all our mills in Norway switching to renewable electricity. When looking at our aqua nutrition business in total, this improvement has been partially offset by an increase in Scope 1 and 2 emissions for warmwater feeds. As explained above, this has been driven by lower availability of renewable energy in some markets and the installation of a backup generator in Ecuador. Still, we have achieved a 23.2% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions for the business as a whole since 2017.
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 switching to 100% renewable energy.
We continued to improve our water consumption for both coldwater and warmwater feeds. Water consumption per tonne of product in our coldwater feeds declined by 4.9% compared to 2023. In warmwater, we achieved an even more dramatic reduction of 21.1% per tonne of feed. This resulted in a water use reduction of approximately 10.6% for the aqua nutrition business as a whole compared with 2023.