Nutreco unveiled a new approach to sustainability reporting, starting with its 2023 report. Instead of publishing one comprehensive Sustainability Report on Earth Day, as it has done in past years, the Nutreco team will publish sustainability results and case studies more frequently throughout the year on the company’s website and release a more concise and compliance-focused report later in the year. This will enable Nutreco to provide its stakeholders with more up-to-date, regular and timely information about the progress it is making on its sustainability RoadMap.

The company is currently implementing a new emissions reduction plan across Nutreco, designed to ensure the company can meet its current SBTi target of 30% CO₂ emissions reduction by 2030 (from a 2018 base year), despite seeing an overall 2.5% increase in scope 1 and 2 emissions for 2023. This latest result was due to both a decrease in energy efficiency (CO₂ per ton produced) and an increase in sold tons (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Scope 1 and 2 emissions developed at Nutreco

Nutreco’s emissions reduction plan covers four main levers: decarbonization, energy efficiency, manure emission reduction and green electricity sourcing, and is supported by several activities.

In the second half of 2023, the company created a concrete plan for every business unit, operating company and plant on how to reduce emissions in 2024 and is now implementing these initiatives. To further incentivize employees towards emissions reduction, the company also added scope 1 and 2 emissions to the short-term performance targets for its teams and has started tracking performance in a quarterly update, with clear follow-ups when targets are not met.

Nutreco’s Management Board made the decision to create a Capex fund solely allocated to the reduction of emissions. This will enable the company to make sustainability Capex investments that may not meet the normal financial thresholds because, for example, the payback time is too long. In 2024, the company is investing EUR 10 million in this fund and will continue to invest this amount in each of the coming years. Nutreco has also mandated that, when equipment needs replacing, it is mandatory to replace it with electric instead of fossil-fuelled equipment whenever feasible.

Nutreco also performed an engineering analysis in 2023 to determine how to build new factories with (net) zero emissions and is using that as the standard for all new factories to be built.

“While we were disappointed to see an overall increase in emissions in 2023, the good news is that some of our business units were able to achieve significant reductions, so we know it can be done. The combination of the Capex fund, the detailed reduction plans, the performance targets and continuous attention from the management board and sustainability team towards the realization of our targets should really bear fruit and result in good progress to report in 2024 and onwards,” said sustainability director, Robert van den Breemer.

“Teams across Nutreco are putting into action initiatives to ensure that we continue to make progress on emissions reduction. For example, we have decided not to use coal in any of our factories and are installing solar panels at several business units. We are also investing in green electricity and reducing emissions with new and optimized boilers. I'm very proud of our teams’ hard work and commitment to helping us achieve our targets and move closer to our purpose of Feeding the Future,” chief supply chain officer Claudio Cervellati concluded.

Find out more information on Nutreco’s commitment to sustainability here.