|
|
|
|
Hello everyone,
As you’re all gearing up for a great 2020, we’re pleased to kick off with the first edition of the sustainability newsletter this year.
We’re committed to maintaining the rigor in meeting and exceeding our sustainability commitments across the board. To this end, we’re sharing with you important highlights from the previous quarter that continue to demonstrate our leadership and initiative in this most crucial aspect of our business.
Read on to get up to speed on our latest palm and shea dashboards, learn about our initiatives to progress against the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and see how we continue to drive value on our signature community programs.
Best wishes,
Sustainability Team, Bunge Loders Croklaan (BLC)
|
|
News Updates
January 2020: Updated Shea Dashboard
The Shea Dashboard captures our progress on actions that we’re committed to from our Shea Sustainability Program. An updated version is available here.
|
|
|
December 2019: Updated Palm Oil Dashboard
The Palm Oil Dashboard, a platform to communicate our sustainability progress and traceability data in the palm oil supply chain, is updated every quarter. Please click here to see the latest updates.
|
|
December 2019: Sustainable Shea Sourcing Leaflet
The BLC Shea Sustainability program builds on our overall vision to create supply chains that are transparent, verified sustainable and drive positive impact on the ground in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Read our Sustainable Shea Sourcing leaflet to learn more about our shea supply chain and Shea Sustainability Program.
|
|
|
December 2019: Bunge closes its first sustainability-linked revolving credit facility
Bunge has successfully closed its first sustainability-linked revolving credit facility (the “Amended Facility”). As part of this mechanism, the interest rate under the Amended Facility is tied to the performance of five sustainability performance targets that highlight and measure Bunge’s continued advancement of its sustainability initiatives across the following three areas: 1) reducing greenhouse gas emissions by improving industrial efficiency; 2) increasing traceability for main agricultural commodities; and 3) supporting increasing levels of adoption of sustainable practices across the wider soybean and palm supply chain.
Read more here.
|
|
October 2019: Peatland rehabilitation and conservation program
BLC is part of a Rehabilitation and Conservation Program in Pahang, Malaysia. The goal of the program is to implement peatland rehabilitation and fire control activities with the indigenous community and to empower the community through education and awareness. The program runs from September 2018 until August 2020. You can read the latest progress update from October 2019 here.
|
|
October 2019: Donation ceremony and training in Orodara, Burkina Faso
As part of our Shea Sustainability Program, we donated 35 energy efficient stoves and 16 shea rollers to a group of 80 women shea collectors in Burkina Faso. This marks a new milestone with BLC now having donated 400 stoves and 800 rollers so far, impacting 5000 and 4000 women in the shea supply chain respectively.
Read the full story here.
|
|
|
|
BLC helps expand capacity at primary school in Ghana
|
|
Our vision for our Shea Sustainability Program has always been to add value to the country of origin and have a positive impact on the livelihoods of shea collectors. To this end, we are committed to providing access to education for children in shea sourcing communities.
When the BLC team and our supplier visited the Zaazi community, close to Savelugu in Northern Ghana, they learned about the need for a primary school building in the community. Community members gathered funds to start construction of a school in the village but fell short and as a result, did not have space for all of the children to attend classes.
|
|
|
When BLC decided to co-finance the construction of the school, two new buildings were erected in no time and as of December 2019, the children of 470 of the women from neighboring villages are accommodated at the school.
|
|
|
Program ILHAM: Ongoing training and a subsidized bio-fertilizer program for our palm oil smallholders
|
|
|
In October 2019, we and our partners IOI Corporation Berhad (IOI), Kilang Kelapa Sawit Fortuna and Kerry Group, organized the second edition of a ‘Best Management Practice’ (BMP) workshop for smallholders participating in Program ILHAM.
Held in Paitan, a remote northern district in Sabah, the workshop included smallholders from surrounding villages who actively send their fresh fruit bunches to Fortuna’s collecting centers in the Paitan and Sugut districts.
Like the first workshop held in July 2019, participants were presented with a range of topics relevant to the smallholders, delivered by experts across BLC and our partner organizations. The format was largely interactive and saw enthusiastic participation from the farmers who went on to sign a letter of commitment to confirm their inclusion in the program. To date, 112 palm oil smallholders across nine communities have signed up for the program. This collaborative smallholder program supports and empowers smallholders in sustainable agriculture production.
|
|
Bio-Fertilizer program
Additionally, BLC and IOI have put together a recommendation for fertilizer application for all participating farmers based on smallholder data collected, as well as soil and foliar sampling exercises conducted in 2019. A subsidy of about 65% will be provided to all smallholders that purchase the specially formulated bio-fertilizers. Fertilizer distribution and application will start this month onwards. There will be four application rounds scheduled for this year: February, May, August and October.
|
|
|
Tag teaming with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) to help advance the UN's Sustainable Development Goals
|
|
In first half of 2020, BLC will take part in the University SDG-Challenge where students and businesses are linked together to work on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are set by the United Nations (UN) to combat climate change and to reduce inequalities in the world. The mission of the SDG-Challenge is to inspire and mobilize students and companies to work together on the UN SDGs.
A team from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) will be working on BLC’s challenge and will look to answer the question “What is the best way to create and measure positive impact across our supply chains?”
As you’re all aware, we currently publish stories and metrics related to each individual supply chain through our Palm and Shea dashboards.
|
|
|
The team that will support this challenge includes six students representing diverse academic backgrounds ranging from Philosophy to Social Science and Entrepreneurship to Econometrics. We welcome them to our office on 25 February for a day full of brainstorming and discussions, hopefully to come up with an out-of-the-box solution to our challenge! This solution will be presented to a jury in April where the team with the best solution will be awarded.
|
|
|
Expert blog - Delivering on our commitment to protect labor rights and welfare in our palm oil supply chains
By Jaideep Singh, Sustainability Manager BLC in Malaysia
|
|
Since 2019, Bunge Loders Croklaan (BLC) and Earthworm Foundation (EF) have been working towards improving the welfare of workers in BLC’s supply chain in Malaysia; aligning with BLC’s ‘no exploitation’ policy commitments.
This is being done through the Labor Transformation Program (LTP), a cross-company initiative to help third-party mills and plantations refine their management practices on labor rights. To date, four mills supplying to BLC’s Pasir Gudang refinery have committed to the LTP.
The LTP is a three-part engagement focused on four key labor rights areas prevalent in the Malaysian palm oil industry – employment contracts, recruitment practices, grievance mechanism and freedom of movement. Through a process of intensive engagement, small and medium-sized mills and plantations have been chosen as transformation sites to tackle any possible challenges in the key areas.
LTP engagements are structured in three stages spanning six to eight months. They include:
- Visit 1: The first stage of engagement consists of an on-the-ground assessment of existing practices. Awareness and capacity-building mentoring are provided for the supplier’s operational management team
- Inter-visit: Reviewing the outcomes of the field assessment and shape a tailored action plan for the entity to work towards
- Visit 2: Reviewing the recommendations highlighted in the action plan and verifying progress, providing additional guidance on unclosed gaps. A summary report is prepared to maintain the entity’s transformative momentum
“With the continued support of our members and clients, we are looking forward to the LTP generating more impact across small and medium-sized players in the milling and plantation landscape,” said Ramain Murugeson, Project Manager at Earthworm Foundation.
|
|
|
Collaborating with the wider palm oil industry to jointly develop radar monitoring technology to detect deforestation
|
|
A coalition of ten major palm oil producers and buyers, including ourselves, are collaborating to support and fund the development of a new, publicly available radar-based forest monitoring system known as Radar Alerts for Detecting Deforestation (RADD).
This partnership between Bunge, Cargill, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), Mondelēz International, Musim Mas, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Sime Darby Plantation, Unilever and Wilmar will make it much easier for companies and other stakeholders to see deforestation happening in near-real-time and with greater accuracy. With this information, they can more quickly mobilize follow-up actions on the ground and work to improve the sustainability of commodity supply chains.
What makes RADD unique is that it is the first radar-based monitoring system of this scale that will make deforestation alerts publicly available.
“Bunge has long believed in the power of technology to help create a more sustainable future. That’s why we’re proud and excited to see our long-term partnership with Satelligence extended to Global Forest Watch to improve transparency and enable a more sustainable supply chain.” said Robert Coviello, Senior Vice President, Sustainability & Government Affairs, Bunge.
Read more about this important initiative here.
|
|
Please send your feedback and questions to blc.sustainability@bunge.com.
|
|
|
Copyright © 2020 Bunge Loders Croklaan, All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
