AgroFresh Solutions Inc. released its first Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report. The report kicks off a larger initiative renewing AgroFresh’s commitment to a range of future sustainability goals. This builds on past achievements and reinforces its dedication to its customers to deliver products, services and solutions that sustainably help improve produce quality and reduce food loss and waste.
This year's report provides a transparent view into AgroFresh's sustainability performance across a number of areas including benchmarks aligned with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). AgroFresh embraces all 17 UN SDGs and has specifically addressed five of them--UN SDGs 2, 9, 10, 12 and 13--within the ESG report.
Highlights include:
- Addressing hunger and promoting sustainable agriculture: Through the deployment of produce freshness products such as SmartFresh™, Harvista™ and our latest line of plant-based coatings VitaFresh™ Botanicals, AgroFresh solutions help to extend the shelf life of produce, mitigating the amount of food lost or wasted, and increasing the availability and access to fresh produce in global markets.
- Promoting innovation: AgroFresh's team of more than 40 scientists have fostered innovation, including digital AgTech platforms under FreshCloud™ that use machine learning and AI to enable advancements in supply chain sustainability.
- Ensuring sustainable global consumption and production patterns: Thanks to AgroFresh's SmartFresh solution, well over 250,000 metric tons of apples have been sold at retail rather than sent to the landfill in France, Italy and the U.S More than 2.5 million metric tons of water has been saved from reduced apple spoilage.
- Taking action to combat climate change and its impacts: AgroFresh's SmartFresh technology has been shown to yield an annual reduction of 800 thousand metric tons of CO2, which is equivalent to emissions from approximately 170 thousand cars a year. AgroFresh's Spanish operations alone have reduced CO2 emissions by 35.3 metric tons from 2015 to 2020 through the implementation of AgroFresh's product packaging recycling program.
“AgroFresh's commitment to sustainability is at the very core of what we do,” said Clint Lewis, chief executive officer. “We firmly believe reducing post-harvest losses of already-produced food is more sustainable than increasing production to compensate, and our solutions have helped keep countless tons of quality produce from being wasted.”
Further commitments include:
- Focusing on continued innovation with 100 percent of its R&D investments in new technology platforms and solutions devoted to developing products and services supporting customers’ environmental, water conservation and food waste goals.
- Reducing AgroFresh’s environmental impact, including its own emissions.
- Contributing to the improving representation of gender and racial/ethnic diversity in global agriculture by strengthening the diversity in its global workforce.
- Making an impact at a local level, through the dedication of employee time and expertise for community impact, raising awareness and engagement with non-profit organizations that advance the mission of food security and food waste prevention.
For more information:
AgroFresh
https://www.agrofresh.com/
