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Climate responsibility expands supply chain

A sustainability director with Cargill Animal Nutrition and Health expects sustainability improvements in the next decade to be a shared investment from the producer across the value chain.

Dave Robb tells Brownfield as sustainability continues to gain importance, support is expected to grow not only from governments, but also food retailers, consumers, and outside investors. “And establishing a new playing field for more sustainable food production, I think there will be a sharing,” he says.

According to Cargill’s recent global Feed4Thought survey, nearly 80 percent of consumers around the world who view climate change as important said they would be willing to change the type of food they purchase, and about half said they would pay more for products that promise a lower carbon footprint.

Robb says Cargill’s corporate sustainability goals are focused on making changes globally in terms of land use, climate change, farmer livelihoods and in human rights. 

“We’re working upstream with some of our suppliers to look at ways of reducing the footprint of the raw materials that we purchase from them, for example looking at regenerative agriculture methods,” he shares.

He says their also evaluating animal feed technologies that reduce livestock emissions with about a quarter of consumers in their survey saying they would buy more beef knowing the animals produced less methane.