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Creating Fair and Sustainable Value

August 16, 2018

Our vision is to work towards a safe and sustainable future, while contributing to the global effort of providing sustenance for a growing population – but what does it mean in practice, and how do we measure progress? We are delighted to share some of the key highlights from 2017 in our latest Sustainability Report.

This year’s theme centers on the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in particular on the importance of goal number 17, which refers to the need for partnerships in order to achieve the remaining goals.

LDC is especially keen to support this goal, which recognizes the complexity of the challenges we all face as a global society, and acknowledges that partnerships are often the only way to address these. That’s why we are working with a rapidly expanding group of partners in our sustainability efforts: from governments to NGOs, banks to international organizations, customers to suppliers, and sometimes even our industry peers.

This year’s Sustainability Report details many of LDC’s collaborative initiatives:

  • sourcing palm oil more sustainably with The Forest Trust (TFT);
  • raising sustainability reporting standards with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD),
  • working towards reduced freight emissions with the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI),
  • working to eradice child labour from our supply chains with the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Entitled “Creating Fair and Sustainable Value”, our report outlines progress across our various product and business lines, but also in relation to each of the four pillars which underpin our sustainability work: People, Community, Environment and Partners & Certification.

“At LDC, we take our responsibility to communities and the environment as seriously as we do to the people who work with us” says Guy Hogge, Global Head of Sustainability. “This is reflected in how we approach sustainability in the context of our business, leveraging our scale and position to effect positive change.”

Spotlight on reductions and new targets

In 2017, we reduced greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, waste generation and water consumption. Small increases in the use of renewable fuels and generation of solid waste were offset by reductions elsewhere.

For the first time, this year’s Sustainability Report also sets targets for further reducing greenhouse gas emissions, marking our commitment to reduce our carbon footprint and help combat climate change.

We also made good progress in our palm business, where we are aiming for 100% traceability. The main obstacles to achieving this goal are the fact that we do not own the palm plantations, that reporting is conducted every 6 months, and that including traceability-specific terms for spot (or one-off) purchases is more challenging. Nevertheless, in 2017 we reached 92% traceability, up from 81% in 2015.

Our Cotton Platform benefitted from partnership with the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). We bought and sold 25% more “Better Cotton”, which is more responsibly and sustainably produced, and the outlook for next year is also excellent.

With soy production and consumption growing rapidly around the world, the introduction of our new Soy Sustainability Policy was a major development, with great potential to contribute to a more sustainable industry and future. Putting this policy into action will take significant work, but also collaboration to take all stakeholders’ interests into account.

“Only through cooperation and collaboration will we reap the collective rewards of responsible business,” says Chief Executive Officer, Gonzalo Ramírez Martiarena.