Monsanto 2016 Sustainability Report Marks Substantial Progress Against Goals
Monsanto Company has released its 2016 Sustainability Report, Growing Better Together. Highlights include Monsanto’s actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change through collaborative efforts, the advancement of its biodiversity position and its alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The company’s sustainability report is aligned across three broad areas – people, planet and company. The report was prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 voluntary Sustainability Reporting Guidelines and includes Monsanto’s United Nations Global Compact Communication on Progress.
The report provides an overview of how the company’s work contributes to achieving the United Nations’ SDGs, a universal call to action to address the world’s most pressing economic, social and environmental challenges. Monsanto reviewed the 17 SDGs and associated 169 targets and identified nine SDGs where it can have the most impact. Three address social and economic topics; three focus on environmental issues; and three provide frameworks for attaining the other six. These SDGs will continue to inform the company’s sustainability strategy, actions and resource allocation decisions.
Other highlights from the 2016 report include the following:
–People
- Reached approximately 7 million people with Off-the-Job Safety content through in-person events and social media efforts.
- Maintained an excellent occupational safety record, including an injury severity rate of .53, which represents a 48 percent improvement since 2011.
- Helped 250,000 rural community members in India adopt healthy and hygienic lifestyles as part of Monsanto’s WBCSD Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) pledge.
–Planet
- Made significant progress in the company’s multi-pronged approach to achieving a carbon neutral operational footprint by 2021 and in promoting climate-smart agriculture practices:
- Attained 89 percent of its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from crop protection operations by 22 percent (per pound of active ingredient) by 2020.
- Established the Carbon-Neutral Collaborative to help develop a scalable and verifiable carbon accounting framework for the agriculture industry.
- Commissioned and publicly shared a third-party study showing that widespread adoption of recommended agricultural practices could potentially absorb more carbon than 2.5 billion tree seedlings grown for 10 years, in the U.S. alone.
- Attained 89 percent of its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from crop protection operations by 22 percent (per pound of active ingredient) by 2020.
- Published company position on biodiversity, which formalizes its long-standing advocacy for biodiversity and is aligned with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
- Attained 47 percent of goal to increase irrigation water application efficiency across its global seed production operation by 25 percent by 2020.
- Continued working with Conservation International to protect and restore forests, with nearly 42,000 acres already impacted in Brazil and Indonesia since 2008.
–Company
- Conducted second annual Supplier Sustainability Assessment to weigh the economic, environmental and social profiles and behaviors of strategic suppliers.
- Reached 100 percent implementation of formal community engagement plans at company manufacturing sites around the globe.
The full Monsanto 2016 Sustainability Report and executive summary is available online here.
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Media Contact:
Lindsey Dario
(314) 694-6141
