Earth Day is an annual celebration that honours the achievements of everyone acting and raising awareness about the importance of long-term ecological sustainability. The theme of this year’s Earth Day is ‘Invest in Our Planet’.
At Cranswick we take our responsibilities to people and the planet seriously and acknowledge the world changes when we do. Actions speak louder than words and this year, we are taking the opportunity to redirect attention to creating a 21st century economy that brings back the health of our planet.
Cranswick, along with more than 300 other ambitious businesses, is a signatory of The Climate Pledge, a commitment to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement 10 years early. In line with the Pledge, as well as a host of other programmes and initiatives we have achieved some major sustainability successes.
In the last year, all eligible manufacturing sites received carbon neutral status PAS 2060 accreditation. Our CDP scores rose to grade B for climate and water security and grade C for forests. The CDP now places us in the top 8% of companies for measuring and reducing climate risk within our supply chain. We’ve also received approvals for our Science Based Targets, which commit us to halving our absolute Scope 1, 2 emissions and relative 3 emissions by 2030. In turn we have secured a sustainability-linked banking loan facility tied to our Science Based Targets, energy and water intensity targets.
In the last two years we have installed 4,000 rooftop solar panels at our Fresh Chicken Site in Eye, removed 1,673 tonnes of plastic from our operations, planted 1,500 native trees and shrubs under the Woodland Trust’s MOREwoods scheme and completed biodiversity screenings at 91 sourcing sites.
We are proud of our recent achievements and successes which build on a host of previous accomplishments, such as surpassing the Champions 12.3 target to halve our food loss and waste 10 years early, switching to 100% renewable energy and LED lighting across all our manufacturing sites, installing combined heat and power (CHP) plants at five of our sites and investing in high-quality Gold Standard and Verra-certified carbon offsets.
We are committed to maintaining our momentum and continually learning and growing, to use our position of leadership within our sector as a force for good, on Earth Day and every day.