Sustainable sourcing

Palm oil is a priority raw material and in 2016 we brought forward our target for purchasing 100% physically certified palm oil from 2020 to 2019. We are developing a separate glidepath for palm kernel oil.

In 2018 we reached 67% of palm oil and palm kernel oil from physically certified sources for our core volumes^* from RSPO Mass Balance, RSPO Segregated or an equivalent standard that is independently verified by a third party. For palm oil only, we achieved 81% from physically certified sources – we are on track to achieve our 2019 target.

We believe we’ll make greater progress towards transforming the industry through greater transparency. In 2018, we became the first consumer goods company to publicly disclose the suppliers and mills in our direct and extended supply chain and created a grievance tracker (PDF | 721KB) for supplier non-compliance with our Policy (PDF | 167KB). We’re also working on jurisdictional approaches to palm oil in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Paper and board are priority raw materials and we maintained 98% sustainably sourced in 2018.

Of this, 84% was received with a third-party certification claim and full chain of custody to demonstrate that it came from sustainably managed forests or recycled material.

There are challenges for our suppliers in providing verifiable evidence to support the make-up of uncertified products in our recycled material. So in 2016 we set a new ambition to accelerate the volume of certified recycled products we purchase by 2019 and to source the recycled fibre from suppliers with third-party certification. Of our total volume in 2018, 11% came from recycled sources without chain of custody. Our procurement teams are working with suppliers to get these volumes certified with chain of custody to meet our 2019 ambition.

Asking our suppliers to certify recycled materials offers reassurance for our business and helps build the market for certified recycled materials.

We achieved our target to source 100% of our soy beans sustainably by 2014 (through the physical purchase of RTRS certified beans).

Soy is one of our priority crops and we maintained 72% of our soy oil from sustainable sources in 2018. This includes Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) certified soy oil, RTRS certificates and self-verified soy oil in the US.

We buy most of our soy from the Americas, so we’re working with farmers there to further sustainable production. In Iowa in the US, we're working with soy farmers and soy oil suppliers to increase the use of cover crops as a way of protecting their soil. In Brazil, through collaboration with the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) and Aliança da Terra, we’re working with partners on The Produzindo Certo (Producing Right) initiative to support growers to improve their agricultural and farm management practices.

Tea is one of our priority crops and we buy around 10% of the world’s black tea. In 2007 we were the first major tea company to commit to sustainably sourcing tea on a large scale. In 2015, we met our target for 100% of the tea in Lipton’s tea bag blends to come from sustainable sources.

We continued our progress in 2018, increasing the proportion of all our tea from certified sustainable sources to 84%.

We work on around 40 major programmes in our tea supply chain, with objectives such as improving health and sanitation, empowering women, addressing climate change, promoting biodiversity and increasing tea workers' and smallholders' incomes. For example, as members of the Malawi Tea 2020 collaboration, we’re working to improve wages in the tea sector: by 2018, 50,000 workers on tea plantations were earning 57% more than Malawi’s agricultural minimum daily wage.

Fruit and vegetables is a complex portfolio of materials with a very large and diverse supply base, making it difficult to achieve our 100% target across the entire portfolio by 2015.

Following an in-depth review of our strategy to optimise our approach to sustainable sourcing over 2016−2017, we’re focusing on a set of key crops which are important to our brands and where, due to our scale and influence, we can drive greater positive impact within these agricultural sectors. There are a small number of crops that we purchase in low volumes and where we alone are unable to significantly impact the market. Fruit is one of the crops that our review led us to deprioritise, and in line with this strategy, our sustainably sourced volumes decreased to 60% in 2018.

Vegetables remain one of our priority crops with 95% of our top 13 sustainably sourced in 2018.

Magnum is our biggest ice cream brand and is on sale in 57 countries. We are now able to source Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa for the majority of these countries.

Our challenge remains in purchasing Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa in Brazil, Venezuela and Israel where the availability of certified beans remains very limited. As cocoa is one of our priority crops, we’re working hard to find solutions to fulfil our ambition in these countries. We also intensified our efforts to source all our cocoa sustainably, jumping from 70% in 2017 to 82%.

In 2018, we joined The Cocoa & Forests Initiative, signing its statement of intent to collaborate pre-competitively to help end deforestation and forest degradation in the cocoa supply chain. We’ve started mapping our direct cocoa supply chain, together with our suppliers, to improve traceability and better understand where our cocoa comes from.

Sugar is one of our priority crops. We verify sugar beet primarily against our Sustainable Agriculture Code (SAC) and mainly use Bonsucro certification for sugar cane.

In 2018 we increased our sustainable sugar supplies to 69%. The proportion of self-assessed and physical, certified sugar rose to 42% (this covers both sugar beet and sugar cane). We achieved the rest of our sugar requirements with Bonsucro credits.

Our long-term is to help create a global supply of sustainable sugar. We believe the best way to achieve this is to harmonise the sustainable sourcing codes of the food and drink industries and forge them into a single standard, which can have an impact at scale. That’s why we have helped develop the Farm Sustainability Assessment through the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, which has been agreed by many businesses and gives farmers a single, simplified sustainability framework to work to.

In 2016 we began an in-depth review of our strategy to optimise our approach to sustainable sourcing. As a result, we’re focusing on a set of key crops which are important to our brands and where, due to our scale and influence, we can drive greater positive impact within these agricultural sectors.

There are a small number of crops that we purchase in very low volumes and where we alone are unable to significantly impact the market. Sunflower oil is one of the crops that our review led us to deprioritise. In line with this strategy, our sustainable sunflower oil volumes decreased to 17% in 2018 and we will not get close to our target.

Nevertheless, we continue to work with our suppliers to find industry-wide solutions to boost supplies of sustainable sunflower oil.

Rapeseed oil is one of our priority crops. In 2017 we reached 84% sustainably sourced, driven by a particularly strong performance in Europe where we were able to buy oil for our German Rama spreads and all our Flora spreads range in the UK.

In 2018, 76% of our volumes were sustainably sourced. This figure was impacted by the sale of our spreads business which purchased a significant amount of sustainable oil. However, we continue to buy rapeseed oil for leading brands such as Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

We also continue to work with our suppliers and other partners, including on a joint approach with our partner Bunge in Canada, where around 200 farmers were signed up to our Sustainable Agriculture Code programme in 2018. In close co-operation with our farm advisers, Control Union, these farmers have transitioned their practices to our Sustainable Agriculture Code’s requirements.

Dairy produce is one of our priority ingredients, and while we increased our sustainable supply to 75% in 2018, we now know we will not get as far as we hoped by 2020. This is because in some countries, for example Russia and Pakistan, sustainable dairy practices are not yet sufficiently widespread to produce a reliable supply. Similarly, the variety of dairy products we buy come from many suppliers, making it difficult to achieve a sustainable supply at scale.

In Turkey we’re trialling ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with milk. As well as better yields and quality, overall a 2% reduction in GHG emissions has been achieved.

In 2018, we began working with the Dairy Sustainability Framework, joining pilot schemes looking at improvements from a regional perspective. This is a first for the dairy industry; further work in 2019 will explore whether this approach can be used as an industry standard.

Ben & Jerry’s ice creams were the first to use Fairtrade (FT) ingredients in 2005. By the end of 2011 in Europe, we achieved Fairtrade certification for all our products produced and distributed in Europe.

In 2012, due to issues around quality and availability, we found we could not source all the FT-certified ingredients we needed for a global conversion. So we revised our target from our previous ‘all ingredients’ to ‘all flavours’ certified.

We identified that by using FT ingredients for the five major commodities in all our base mixes and for our chunks and swirls, and following proper Fairtrade derogation procedures, all our ice cream flavours would qualify for Fairtrade certification by 2013. We reached 77% in 2013.

In 2013 we also decided to source only non-GMO ingredients by seed source. As this added complexity to our conversion programmes, we delayed our plans, achieving FT-certification for all our flavours in 2014.

Our research shows that consumers prefer products made with cage-free eggs. However, the conditions in which eggs are produced vary widely around the world. We take animal welfare seriously as a social and ethical concern and were one of the first global companies to work with suppliers to start sourcing cage-free eggs.

Since 2009, Hellmann’s, Amora and Calvé have been 100% cage-free in Western Europe. By 2014, we had converted our supply chain in Eastern Europe too so that all our European products could use cage-free eggs.

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream has used only cage-free eggs in Europe since 2004; by the end of 2011, 99% of all eggs used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream mix worldwide were also cage-free.

In 2018 we announced our commitment to convert all our egg supplies to cage-free by 2025. We continued to make good progress in North America, reaching 96% cage-free and 16% in Latin America.

Our commitment covers office paper products such as printer paper, note books and envelopes. By using paper from sustainable or recycled sources, we avoid using wood from non-sustainable sources, helping our aim to end deforestation.

We achieved our target in 2013, when 100% of our paper-based office materials for our top 21 countries came from either certified, sustainable forests or recycled sources. All our suppliers sign a certificate of compliance, and we monitor compliance via quarterly reporting. Where necessary, we have changed from non-sustainable products to sustainable products.

We then extended our ambition from the top 21 countries to all other countries in Europe and Latin America, with the aim of reaching 100% compliance by the end of 2015, which we achieved.

While we no longer report on this target as we achieved it in 2013, we continue to drive greater use of sustainable paper across our business.