Sustainability starts with growing
Sustainability starts at the beginning of our value chain – with the sugar beet and sugar cane. How can we make our cultivation processes more sustainable with regards to climate, water, soil and biodiversity?
What’s clear is that we can’t make progress without our growers. That’s why we are continually engaged in a dialogue with them to sound out opportunities and discuss challenges. We actively engage in these tasks and want to work with our growers to achieve the relevant sustainability targets and do our bit for the environment. To do this, we have worked with our experts to develop a catalogue of measures drawing on scientific criteria. One of them is the use of low-carbon fertilizers.
Not all measures have the same effect on the various sustainability aspects from climate to biodiversity, and they are all associated with different costs. Throughout Europe, we prioritise the ones that offer the greatest possible leverage in terms of effect, while being as easy as possible to implement for our growers. We do not want to impose too much on our growers but work with them in a mutually respectful, equal partnership. This includes accepting that not all farms will be able to achieve the same levels of sustainability within a short space of time. And, speaking of costs: they need to be distributed fairly throughout the value chain and should not all be borne by the farmers.