Environment

We are committed to producing and supplying food to a growing world population, while minimizing our environmental impact. That’s why we carefully monitor our assets’ carbon footprint, as well as their energy, water usage and waste.

Our environmental protection efforts are based on the following principles:

Understanding our impact

We identify and assess opportunities to protect the environment throughout the regions in which we work, at all levels of our operations and at every step of our value chain.

Meeting environmental standards

Before establishing our operations, we obtain environmental licenses from the appropriate authorities. When no formal license is required, we comply with applicable local environmental law and apply our own Environmental Management System (EMS) standards. In countries where environmental legislation is less stringent than our own standards, our internal EMS serves as our guide.

Protecting biodiversity around our assets

Protecting the biodiversity of habitats surrounding our facilities is a priority both in the expansion and day-to-day running of our asset network globally. We carry out environmental and social impact assessments before commencing any projects.

Governance

In 2019 ,we set up an Environment Committee as part of LDC’s governance structure, comprising several LDC senior leaders and with the periodic invitation of experts from external organizations to exchange and learn.

As part of our commitment to transparent reporting on key sustainability issues, the following links provide information on members, participants and attendees, as well as the minutes of topics discussed at committee meetings.

Minutes – December 2019
Minutes – January 2020

Case Study

From ash to compost in Brazil

On average, juice processing plants generate 1.5 metric tons of ash per month, which would usually be sent to landfills. Instead, LDC arranges for a biomass supplier to visit our juice plants after each biomass delivery, to pick up this ash. The supplier then turns the ash, which is the result of burning biomass, into compost that can be used for soil enrichment. This initiative was so successful that it is being proposed across all of our facilities in North Latin America.

Case Study

LDC Brazil builds a sustainable park

In 2014, LDC Brazil inaugurated “Amigos da Natureza” (“Friends of Nature”), a 7,000-square-meter sustainable park at our Luís Eduardo Magalhães unit, in the country’s Northeast region. The park was created and built with the help of employees from our local Cotton team, using recycled materials such as tires and PET bottles. It includes a lake with a waterfall and fish, a quiet garden area, an orchidarium and other attractions, for our employees and the local communities.