General Mills: Environmental Responsibility

By setting goals that push the company to do more, we demonstrate leadership in establishing aggressive goals within the food industry. 

For example, because we set goals: 

  • General Mills burns oat hulls left over from the milling process to reduce one of our plant's carbon footprints by about 21 percent. 
  • We have an irrigation process that uses 50 percent less water than conventional furrow irrigation, and also reduces electricity and pesticide use. 

Our fact sheets contain these and other interesting details. 

Videos from this campaign

Content from this campaign

Environment

General Mills Works to Decouple Emissions From Business Growth
As our warming climate poses greater and greater uncertainty for the food sector, leading companies are looking to shrink their own contributions to climate change and build resilience for the days to come.

Environment

Agriculture: The Missing Piece of the Climate Puzzle
By 2050, countries around the world must find a way to produce more food than they have in the past 8,000 years to accommodate population growth—all while minimizing the agricultural sector’s contribution to climate change.

Environment

Harnessing the Power of Wind Energy
Climate change is a shared, global challenge and every individual and company must pitch in to be a part of the solution. At General Mills, our goal is to reduce our energy emission levels by 28 percent by 2025. One way that we are getting closer to reaching our greenhouse gas emission reduction goals is by signing a virtual power purchase agreement last June with Southern Power, a leading U.S. wholesale energy provider and subsidiary of Southern Company, through their 148-megawatt Cactus Flats Wind Facility in Concho County, Texas.

Environment

New Platform Offers Resources and Engagement Tools for California Water Agencies and Communities
Maven’s Notebook, in partnership with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Stanford’s Program on Water in the West (WitW), launched a new website today at www.groundwaterexchange.org to provide a central hub of science-based information related to California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

Awards, Ratings & Rankings

General Mills Named to Elite Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and Dow Jones Sustainability North American Index
General Mills has been named to both the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the North American Index by S&P Dow Jones Indices and sustainability asset management firm RobecoSAM. The Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) is one of the most prestigious recognitions for leadership in corporate sustainability, and is based on in-depth analysis of economic, environmental and social performance. General Mills scored well above the industry average across each of these dimensions.

Environment

Tackling the 1.6-Billion-Ton Food Loss and Waste Crisis
The scale of the problem is staggering. Each year, 1.6 billion tons of food worth about $1.2 trillion are lost or go to waste—one-third of the total amount of food produced globally.1 To put the figure in perspective, that is ten times the mass of the island of Manhattan. And the problem is only growing: BCG estimates that by 2030 annual food loss and waste will hit 2.1 billion tons worth $1.5 trillion.

Environment

Cactus Flats Wind Facility in Texas is Operational
The electricity and associated renewable energy credits (RECs) generated by the facility are being sold under two separate power purchase agreements with General Mills and General Motors. Both companies have the option to keep or sell the associated RECs.

"As we are seeing an increase in renewable energy adoption in the U.S., we saw an opportunity for our commerce to support and enable the greening of the grid," said General Mills EVP and Chief Supply Chain Officer John Church. "We see the potential for wind energy to have a positive environmental impact. Cactus Flats is one of many initiatives we have underway to get us closer to reaching our climate commitment."

Responsible Production & Consumption

Digging Into Soil Health Is Good Business
With its important role in sequestering carbon, soil is gaining recognition as a tool for mitigating the growing threat of climate change. As a result, agriculture-based industries, such as food, textiles and to some extent cosmetics, are digging into the health of soil — the key to sequestration. These industries are engaging with sustainable agricultural practices designed to regenerate and enhance this critical natural resource.

Sustainable Development Goals

How General Mills Is Tackling the Global Food Crisis to Reach SDG #2: Zero Hunger
General Mills’ philanthropy in food security is strongly aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 2 of “Zero Hunger”, as well as SDG 12, “Responsible Consumption and Production”. Our approach in food security is to strengthen systems at the local community as well as global levels via targeted investments in three key impact areas.

Environment

How General Mills, McDonalds and Kering Are Setting Credible, Courageous Sustainability Goals
Corporate adoption of science-driven sustainability targets is gaining momentum, as companies seek to align their strategies more specifically with the ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed to avoid global temperature increases of more than 2 degrees Celsius.

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