Sustainability
Our approach
Our sustainability approach is designed to safeguard our people and communities, protect the environment and ensure all our food and feed products are safe
Our sustainability approach
As a world-leading agricultural network, we understand the vital role we play in the lives of everyone in that network, from the producers who grow commodities, to the consumers who buy them and the people who work for us. We are conscious of our obligations in the communities where we operate and to the environment we all share.
We aim to meet our responsibilities to everyone involved – to our people, suppliers, customers, communities and the environment, ensuring we fulfil and go beyond our legal requirements to manage the risks inherent in our business and to maintain our social licence to operate.
Our approach consists of:
Our values are key to how we run our business. They reflect our purpose, our priorities and the way we conduct ourselves, wherever we work and whatever our role. They are based on a series of positive behaviours – we make things happen, we are responsible, connected and open, and we look ahead. Our values define who we are and how we do business and govern our approach to sustainability.
Our values provide the foundations for our business and supplier codes of conduct, which set out the standards we require people to understand and meet. These codes put our values into practice and inform our daily actions and decisions.
View our code of conduct and supplier code of conduct.
We have a range of policies, including anti-corruption and whistleblowing policies, which set out our strategic positions and inform our corporate decision making.
Our policies are supported in turn by more detailed operational policies, procedures and guidelines to meet the specific needs of individual assets.
Governance
We have a robust system of governance to oversee our sustainability strategy. It is led from the top and is based around our values and code of conduct, so that everybody in the business understands their role in ensuring the success, accountability and transparency of the strategy.
Our sustainability ambitions and actions are overseen by our Board of Directors, Board ESG committee and the global sustainability committee. These bodies consider not only our own assets but the sustainability performance of our global supply chains.
Our approach is underpinned by a robust organisational structure that ensures our standards meet or exceed legal requirements and address material risk. Our global sustainability team leads the development of company-wide policy and programmes, with regional management teams leading the local implementation with the support of their local sustainability teams. We monitor our performance closely at every level of the business.
Monitoring our performance
Our sustainability progress is monitored by relevant business leaders and overseen by our global sustainability committee, to ensure it stays in line with the needs of our business. Performance in health, safety, environment, communities and human rights is a key element of management reporting to the global executive management team and the Board of Directors.
We regularly share our performance, learning and experiences with all internal stakeholders and management around the world to ensure everyone remains informed and benefits from being part of our global network.
External partners
Viterra is a member of many organisations and a participant in product and sustainability standards organisations.
These partnerships, and the collective actions that come from them, give us the best opportunity to play an influential role in the industry and drive meaningful changes to meet the demand of consumers while preserving the same opportunities for future generations.
We also need the support of all other participants and stakeholders along the supply chain to realise our ambitions and achieve the sustainability targets we have set.
We are part of the United Nations Global Compact, an initiative to generate a global movement towards sustainable development. We are committed to aligning our operations with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.
We are a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a global advocacy association made up of 200 international companies that have a focus on sustainable development. It provides leadership to drive change and improve sustainability within each business and will increase the opportunities for us to collaborate with like-minded companies in creating a sustainable future.
We are members of the Soft Commodities Forum (SCF), a global platform for leading soft commodities companies, convened by the WBCSD. We participate in a common framework for reporting and monitoring progress on transparent and traceable supply chains for soy in Brazil's Cerrado region. The initiative aims to turn the commitments made by its members into accountable and measurable action.
We are one of 14 signatories to the Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5°C, which was launched at COP27 in Egypt in November 2022. The roadmap will build on ongoing work and existing industry-wide commitments to reduce emissions from land-use change, specifically relevant to Viterra are the soy and palm oil sectors, whilst protecting global food systems and producer livelihoods.
As part of our commitment to the roadmap, we have published our sustainable sourcing implementation plans for soy and palm oil and in 2024, we will set scope 3 emission reduction targets related to land use change based on science.
Sustainable sourcing implementation plan – soy
Sustainable sourcing implementation plan – palm oil
Statement regarding the soy sector roadmap to 1.5°C
We are a member of the Cerrado Working Group, which brings together stakeholders such as major retailers groups, financial institutions, civil society members, agri-industry and commodity exporting associations. The group, formed in 2017, is seeking solutions to end legal conversion of natural areas by developing an environmental compensation mechanism that would compensate farmers to keep native vegetation inside their lands beyond the legal requirements.
As members of the Round Table on Responsible Soy, an international organisation that promotes the responsible production, processing and trading of soy globally, we are part of a joint effort to increase production of soy while reducing environmental harm.
As long-term signatories of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, we do not source soybeans from lands deforested after 2008 in the Amazon Biome or from producers who are not compliant with other socio-environmental requirements across Brazil.
Since the start of the Amazon Soy Moratorium in 2006, deforestation in the Amazon has significantly reduced. We continue to work with the industry, producers, governments and many other interested parties to bring solutions to the sector in order to fully eliminate deforestation from our value chains.
The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) is the largest cotton sustainability programme in the world and aims to make global cotton production better for the people who produce it, better for the environment it grows in and better for the sector’s future. It trains producers in sustainable practices to reduce the amount of fertiliser, pesticides and water they use. Our goal is to increase the volume of sustainably produced cotton in our supply chains.
We are members of the ISCC, a globally leading certification system that certifies the sustainable origins of the agricultural produce we market and supply.
Sustainable Development Goals
We support the 17 principles of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals which are mapped on to our sustainability pillars. We take active measures to contribute to the following:
SDG 1: end poverty in all its forms everywhere
SDG 2: end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote
sustainable agriculture
SDG 3: ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages
SDG 5: achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
SDG 6: ensure access to water and sanitation for all
SDG 7: ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy
SDG 8: promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
SDG 12: ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
SDG 13: take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
SDG 15: sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss
SDG 17: revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development
