Environmental Sustainability at Cargill

As a food and agricultural company, Cargill’s purpose is to nourish people. Human food and animal feeds depend on clean water, soil, air and light. As the world’s population continues to grow, so too do the demands on the environment. A sustainable future requires investing in environmental sustainability.

At Cargill, we are aware that our global reach creates high expectations for leadership in resource stewardship. We look to innovation as a way to preserve and protect the environment, whether by using energy and resources more wisely, pioneering profitable business and product lines that make use of renewable raw materials or helping customers shrink their environmental footprints.

Using energy and resources more wisely

 Four Cargill Corn Milling North America locations – Blair, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Eddyville, Iowa; and Wahpeton, North Dakota, earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA's) prestigious ENERGY STAR, the national symbol for protecting the environment through energy efficiency.  At our beef and pork plants, Cargill reclaims methane from its wastewater lagoons and turns it into biogas to create thermal energy to run its boilers. Biogas displaces 20-25 percent of natural gas demand at all eight of Cargill’s U.S. meat processing plants.  Our animal nutrition business in Honduras has replaced diesel-run boilers with a boiler fueled by sawdust from the local lumber industry. Switching from diesel to sawdust has reduced carbon emissions by about 6,000 metric tons per year.  Cargill’s cocoa and chocolate business in Wormer, the Netherlands, reduced its GHG emissions by 10 percent through better transport and capacity planning.  Our poultry facility in London, Ontario, Canada, reduced freshwater consumption by 28 percent in 24 months, in part because all of the water used for chilling at the facility is recycled twice for cooling and rinsing.  In developing our Truvia™ sweetener business, Cargill has embraced the opportunity to create a responsible, sustainable supply chain for a crop new to global commercial scale production. We are growing our stevia supply from its infancy with strong environmental, economic and social standards.  A Cargill-funded biogas plant on the Korean island province of Jeju will convert livestock manure into energy through a fermentation process that generates methane. The methane will then be converted into electricity and sold to the local power grid, generating nearly 700,000 kilowatt- hours of electricity each year.  Our beef processing facility in High River, Alberta, Canada, collects and uses biogas from the wastewater treatment system to reduce both GHG emissions and natural gas use.

Cargill’s strategic sourcing function works with suppliers on energy and resource efficiency improvements. Outcomes of these activities include:

 Redesigning corrugated boxes in Cargill’s North American Beef business to save 2,300 tons of fiber.  Sourcing woven poly bags for Cargill’s Animal Nutrition business in Asia that are 15 percent thinner, resulting in a reduction of 617 tons of plastic resin and overall fossil fuel reductions.  Working with a supplier to redesign Cargill Refined Oils Europe’s PET bottle and cap to reduce 612 tons of plastic resin.  Implementing programs in Cargill’s Asia-based businesses resulting in a reduction of 140 tons of plastic resin.

Products and Services Innovations

Cargill has built several bio-based industrial businesses which serve multiple markets:

 Cargill-owned NatureWorks produces a performance plastic, Ingeo™, made from plants utilizing a process that requires 47 percent less fossil fuel and emits 59 percent less GHGs than traditional plastics.  Cargill bio-based polyurethane, BiOH®, is used in making flexible foam for upholstered furniture and bedding, carpet backing, and automotive cushioning.  Cargill’s Industrial Oils & Lubricants business produces vegetable oil-based products and a range of other naturally sourced oils used to make paints, coatings, construction materials, lubricants, electrical transformer fluids and other products.  Cargill’s AgHorizons business, in Canada and the United States, provides farmers agronomic solutions to optimizing yields per unit of input, thereby allowing them to produce more from the same amount of fuel, land, and water. In agriculture, fertilizer is a key contributor to GHG emissions. Cargill’s precision agriculture approach optimizes yields through precise application of crop nutrients and protection products, thus reducing GHG emissions.  Cargill’s ocean transportation business unit (OT) formed a partnership agreement with SkySails GmbH (SkySails) to fit a large kite on a Cargill-chartered ship, aiming to use wind power technology to reduce GHGs in the shipping industry.

Partnerships with customers, academic institutions and communities

In the area of climate science, Cargill is actively engaged in efforts to build understanding of the impact of climate change on the agriculture, energy and food systems in which the company participates. Examples include:

 Cargill is a sponsor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Global Change Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change.  Cargill supports the work of Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment.  Cargill is a founding partner of the University of Arkansas’ Applied Sustainability Center.

Carbon Disclosure Project

 Cargill for the first time participated in 2011 in the Carbon Disclosure Project. CDP is an independent, not-for-profit organization holding the largest database in the world of primary corporate climate change and water information.

Setting goals

By 2015, Cargill aims to improve energy efficiency by 5 percent; improve greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity by 5 percent; increase renewable energy to 12.5 percent of its energy portfolio; and improve freshwater efficiency by 5 percent.

In fiscal 2012, Cargill’s progress toward its resource efficiency goals was:

 Energy efficiency improved 3.6 percent;  GHG intensity improved 4.9 percent;  Renewables accounted for 13.5 percent of the company’s energy portfolio; and  Freshwater efficiency improved 4.8 percent.

August 2012