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Our Operations

Introduction

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As one of the world’s largest food companies — one guided by the Five Principles of Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom — we know that understanding our impacts on the environment is essential.

We have quantified the impacts at each stage of our value chain. This approach helps to define our strategies, set appropriate targets and improve our performance. See Understanding Our Impacts

This process has shown that our most significant impacts are created when the raw materials we use are produced and shipped. Addressing these impacts is challenging as they are rarely under our direct control. We are working with others across the supply chain to drive progress.

Our factories and offices (which we refer to as our "operations") represent our second-greatest area of impact. This is where we have most control, and consequently is where our strategy is most developed. We call this strategy our Sustainable in a Generation (SiG) program.

As part of the SiG program, we have set absolute long-term commitments for fossil fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and are working on similar long-term commitments for water and waste. We have also set hard targets for reducing usage in the short term.

Key Targets

Our long-term commitment is to achieve zero fossil-fuel energy use and zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. We are developing similar long-term commitments for water and waste.

Our short-term targets are to:

  • Reduce direct fossil-fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2015 from a 2007 baseline
  • Reduce water use by 25 percent by 2015 from a 2007 baseline
  • Achieve zero waste to landfill by 2015

For a full explanation of these goals and targets, see Our Approach to Operations.

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