Nature

Water

Water is essential for everyone, but it is scarce. This is why, together with our growers, we are committed to ensuring responsible water management. We invest in maximising water conservation in the field, for example, by using the latest irrigation techniques, reusing water and effective soil management. But we also look beyond the grower to consider water use in the surrounding area. In areas where water use and availability are out of balance, we engage with stakeholders to make the ecosystem healthier and more resilient. We develop Water Stewardship activities at a regional level, which involves ensuring progress together with local and international parties to successfully coordinate the supply and demand for water across the region. We are a sector leader in the certification of responsible water use, educating our buyers on key water issues and making water use an essential purchase criterion.

Read more about it in our Water Policy or in our Water Stewardship Journey.

• Social and Water Monitoring Protocol
• Water Stewardship Journey

Climate

Climate change is one of the biggest global threats and we are already experiencing the impact of a changing climate in our cultivation regions. Increasing periods of drought and extreme weather affect harvests and product quantities. Although fruit and vegetables generally have a lower environmental footprint than other food products, our sector is still responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. With this in mind, we are actively working to reduce our emissions in the areas of cultivation, transport, energy and waste. We are the first fruit and vegetable importer worldwide whose climate objectives have been approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI). These objectives are in line with the Paris climate agreement, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5°C. We review our progress on our objectives on an annual basis.