Kellogg Company has joined the Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), committing to expand its global sustainability efforts by working with businesses and policymakers to enact meaningful energy and climate policies.
BICEP, a project of Ceres, was launched in 2008 with a core group of five companies, including Starbucks, Nike, and Timberland. It has since expanded to 32 leading companies, such as eBay, Symantec and Jones Lang LaSalle, which represent a broad spectrum of business sectors. BICEP members have been vocal proponents of renewable energy, sustainable transportation and stricter pollution controls on power plants.
With worldwide sales over $14 billion, Kellogg Company produces and markets more than 1,600 foods. The company’s first commitment to sustainability dates back more than 100 years when it began using recycled materials for its cereal boxes.
Last month, Kellogg renewed its environmental and social commitments, which include:
- Responsibly sourcing 100 percent of its top 10 ingredients by 2020.
- Continuing to reduce its energy use, water use, waste to landfill and packaging materials building on goals set in 2008.
- Providing support to growers, especially women and smallholders, to adapt to climate change, optimize their inputs and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Like other food and beverage companies, upstream agriculture emissions are the largest source of carbon emissions in Kellogg’s value chain. As a result, Kellogg says it is focused on improving the sustainability of agricultural production and helping improve livelihoods and climate resiliency for growers around the world.
The company will announce a new pledge in support of this work at the UN Climate Summit. These efforts will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions through agriculture practices and support prevention of deforestation, which accounts for an estimated 15 percent of global GHG emissions.
Additional climate and energy commitments from Kellogg Company include:
- Development of a climate policy as part of its new social and environmental sustainability goals announced in August 2014. The climate policy includes a commitment to establish a climate change adaptation strategy that incorporates the needs of smallholders in its supply chain by December 2015, among other pledges.
- Signing on to President Obama’s Climate Data Initiative. Together with the University of Minnesota’s Global Landscapes Initiative, Kellogg committed to openly share data and maps that illustrate how climate change affects risks to major crops within the global food system. Kellogg is also a new member of Global Open Data for Agriculture & Nutrition (GODAN) which supports global efforts to make agricultural and nutritionally relevant data available worldwide.
- Expanding plans for zero net deforestation pledge to include other ingredients and materials at high-risk for deforestation within its supply chain, including packaging fiber, soy and sugar cane, with a goal of achieving zero net deforestation in high-risk supply chains by 2020. This builds on the company’s commitments announced earlier this year to source sustainable palm oil and sustainable rice.
- Increasing the use of low-carbon energy sources and water reuse in plans by 2020, along with goals to reduce water and energy use.
Kellogg also has signed the Ceres Climate Declaration, now signed by more than 1,000 companies. PepsiCo signed the Declaration last week.
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Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
Mike Hower is the founder of Hower Impact — a boutique consultancy delivering best-in-class strategic communication advisory and support for corporate sustainability, ESG and climate tech.
Published Sep 22, 2014 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST