We have a public commitment to reaching deforestation-free value chains in 2025, the most ambitious deadline at our scale in our industry. This commitment extends to regions where we operate including our direct and indirect soy sourcing from South America, and encompasses native vegetation conversion in the appropriate geographies, reconciling production with environmental, economic and social interests. It also includes a robust NDPE (no deforestation, no peatland, no exploitation) approach for sourcing palm oil.
Read more details about Bunge’s non-deforestation commitment and our approaches to both soy and palm oil in our 2022 Global Non-Deforestation Report.
We have a public commitment to reaching deforestation-free value chains in 2025, the most ambitious deadline at our scale in our industry. This commitment extends to regions where we operate including our direct and indirect soy sourcing from South America, and encompasses native vegetation conversion in the appropriate geographies, reconciling production with environmental, economic and social interests. It also includes a robust NDPE (no deforestation, no peatland, no exploitation) approach for sourcing palm oil.
Read more details about Bunge’s non-deforestation commitment and our approaches to both soy and palm oil in our 2022 Global Non-Deforestation Report.
Sustainable Soy
As the leading soybean processor in South America, we are focusing and investing a significant share of our sustainability and technology implementation efforts in this region, which is not only relevant for our business, but also considered home to vital landscapes for the global environment and climate.
As part of our implementation plan, we are:
- Building full traceability to farm for direct (farms we purchase commodities from) and indirect sources (farms that sell to resellers from whom we purchase). By using cutting edge satellite monitoring and leveraging our strong relationships with farmers, we can identify changes in land use and soy planting on over 12,000 farms we have mapped and monitored to date.
- Transparently disclosing key performance indicators related to our supply chain, traceability, monitoring, supplier engagement and non-compliance.
- Working closely and engaging with farmers to protect native vegetation and to support increasingly productive and sustainable value chains. This includes innovative ways of engaging our indirect supply chain.
- Developing enhanced supplier non-compliance and grievance processes some of which are now in effect ahead of our 2025 commitment.
- Actively collaborating with the sector to increase industry-wide transparency and to support the creation of fair compensation for farmers who commit to sustainable agricultural practices and who avoid native vegetation conversion.
- Publicly disclosing progress on our non-deforestation journey, and continuing our disclosure once our policy is implemented in 2025.
Our Grains & Oilseeds Commitment contains our principles and approach. We have also published ten progress reports since 2016 describing our actions taken and our performance on the ground meeting our 2025 non-deforestation commitment. View these reports by visiting our Accountability page.
Grievances can be submitted by visiting this link.
Robust Monitoring and Engagement
As markets evolve and consumer trends become more focused, traceability is becoming table-stakes. That is why we have evolved our focus toward monitoring the farms in our direct supply chain.
Whereas traceability indicates our ability to locate the farm on a map, monitoring describes our ability to see and evaluate what is physically happening on the property. Our monitoring system is industry-leading in terms of its scale and depth, and is only possible due to the strong relationships we have developed with suppliers over the past century. 100% of soy volumes from the high-risk areas of the Cerrado in Brazil and the Gran Chaco in Argentina and Paraguay are monitored.
Importantly, Bunge even monitors farms that no longer supply us. We believe this is an important way to assess the prevalence of land use change across an agricultural region, and apply new landscape approaches to our engagement with farms. We are aiming for 100% monitoring of indirect farms in Brazil before 2025 through the Bunge Sustainable Partnership.
Sustainable Palm Oil
Palm oil is an essential ingredient and the most widely used vegetable oil in the world. Its use is widespread and diverse in food production and in other industries. It is included in many products – food, feed, health goods, cosmetics and even used in energy production, such as biofuels, in some parts of the world.
Given its importance to so many sectors, Bunge is committed to sourcing and processing traceable and certified sustainable palm oil. We believe traceability enables more responsibly sourced materials. It’s what gives us greater control over our supply chain, right from the origin – and that means being able to more rigorously influence the sustainability, quality and food safety of palm oil for our customers. For several years, we have been on a journey towards high traceability for palm oil, and now have one of the highest traceability-to-plantation numbers in the industry.
We deliver palm oil that is produced in accordance with NDPE practices, which guide not only our approach but also help support our customers to deliver on their commitments for:
- No Deforestation, which refers to no deforestation when developing land, identifying and protecting High Conservation Value (HCV) areas and High Carbon Stock (HCS) areas, a no-burning policy and the reduction of GHG emissions.
- No Peat, which refers to no new developments on peatland and encourages the use of best management practices on existing plantations on peat. Where possible, peat restoration is also implemented.
- No Exploitation, which refers to no exploiting workers, children, local communities or small-scale growers in the production of palm oil.
You can learn more about our palm oil sustainability efforts and projects by visiting the dashboard from Bunge Loders Croklaan.
