Overview

Sustainable agriculture and food production are among the world’s most pressing challenges. Collectively, we must find the best way to feed the world’s rapidly growing population, while respecting our planet’s finite resources and adapting swiftly to climate change.

The combination of our expertise and strategic position in the value chain creates opportunities to engage farmers, communities, businesses and other organizations, even if we do not always directly control agricultural resources or influence consumer demand.

Despite the challenges, we remain committed to leveraging our position as a leading merchant in order to contribute to the development of more responsible, inclusive and sustainable societies.

LDC Sustainability Pillars

From a traditional family business, we have grown into a truly global and diverse company, processing, merchandizing and transporting agricultural goods around the world. As we grew, we recognized the need to monitor and manage sustainability as an integral element of our increasingly extended portfolio. That’s why we developed an approach based on 4 pillars: People, Environment, Partners and Community. Today, these pillars help us identify where we can improve and where we are already succeeding.

Partners

Our planet depends on companies, governments, civil society & other institutions working together for a sustainable future.

What does it mean to “work together for a sustainable future”? For LDC, partnerships are at the core of our sustainability efforts. We believe that by working in collaboration, we achieve the best results, and come up with creative solutions to provide goods to a rapidly growing population, while respecting the health and environmental limitations of our planet. LDC places particular emphasis on Goal 17 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): “Working together towards the goals.”

People

The safety, wellbeing and development of all our employees and contractors is LDC’s top priority.

That includes establishing and enforcing robust policies and ambitious targets to reduce the number of accidents at our facilities to zero. Labor and human rights, as well as workplace diversity, are also part of this work stream. Our specialized global teams ensure that work conditions are safe for all LDC employees and contractors, allowing them to return home safely, every day.

Community

Our presence in over 100 countries gives us a unique opportunity to play an active role in the lives of local communities around the world.

We invest in initiatives which support the development of communities living close to our operations and assets, and encourage our employees to be active community members and volunteers wherever they live and work.

Environment

Matching supply and demand with as little environmental impact as possible is one of our key challenges.

Our unique position in the value chain comes with responsibilities. Matching supply and demand with as minimal environmental impact is our key challenge. Meeting that responsibility is also a profitability issue for LDC – an optimal footprint is in our best interest.

Key issues

From climate change to human rights and economic development, merchants like LDC are at the forefront of some of the world’s most pressing challenges. We must find a way to feed the world’s rapidly growing population in an ethical and sustainable way. In this section, you can read about some of the key issues we tackle each day.

What we have achieved

Incorporating a sustainability mindset into our day-to-day operations involves rolling out our policy to our network, profiling suppliers, undertaking risk assessments and dealing with identified weaknesses collaboratively.