Responsible Business
We aim to carry out all of our operations in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way that delivers business value and mitigates our impact on the world around us.
Our business has a global reach, covering the entire cocoa and chocolate ingredients supply chain – from the sourcing of cocoa beans in origin countries, through to processing cocoa and other raw materials in our facilities, packaging them, and transporting them to our customers. We aim to carry out all these operations in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way that delivers business value and mitigates our impact on the world around us. To this end, our operations and supply chain teams are always looking to increase efficiency, maximize safety, and minimize our environmental footprint.
Sustainability governance
Our sustainability governance structure provides the lines of accountability that will ensure we deliver the commitments set out in our Sustainability Goals and in the Cargill Cocoa Promise.
Our governance structure supports our business approach, which is to embed sustainability as a core element of our Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate business strategy and at all levels of our organization. Similarly, our governance structure is connected through our regional operational business, as well as through internal business functions with a sustainability role.
Our global Sustainability Steering Group provides strategic oversight of our sustainability strategy. This group is made up of our Director of Sustainability and other members of Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate’s Global Leadership Team. The group meets to review progress and assess next steps of our sustainability program. Ultimate responsibility for fulfilling our Cargill Cocoa Promise lies with our Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate President, Harold Poelma.
Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate is aided in this effort by Cargill’s corporate sustainability hub, which has experts on climate science, water, land use and more. This hub harnesses the full power of Cargill to help all of the company’s businesses as they drive sustainability efforts across their industries. It creates connections to share and scale the best ideas in Cargill’s corporate sustainability priorities of farmer prosperity, climate change, land use, water resources, and human rights.
Ethics and compliance
Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate fully complies with Cargill corporate’s employee Code of Conduct and its corresponding Supplier Code of Conduct. These outline standards for conducting business throughout the world and are based on the company’s seven Guiding Principles, which are ingrained in Cargill’s culture and serve as the foundation for the behaviors expected from all employees, contractors and suppliers, including those connected to Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate.