Climate change is one of the most crucial global issues of our time and its impacts are already having far-reaching effects on people and the planet. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that we need to act fast to keep the average global temperature increase under 1.5°C, above which would result in more serious consequences.

Like many other sectors, the global food industry plays a vital role in helping to meet the goals of the UN’s Paris Agreement to limit the average global temperature increase.

Active industry leader towards our 2030 goals

As an active leader in the food and beverage industry, we play an important role in helping to meet the goals of the UN’s Paris Agreement. At Ferrero, we are committed to halving our emissions from owned operations (Scope 1 & 2) and reducing end-to-end greenhouse gas emissions for each tonne of our products by 43% (Scope 1, 2, & 3) by 2030.

Our climate goals have been validated by the independent Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), confirming that our Scope 1 & 2 target of halving our emissions from owned operations is in line with the UN’s Paris Agreement goals to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

With the approval of the SBTi, we are proud to join a common effort of companies who follow a science-based trajectory to tackling the important issue of climate change.

We continuously measure our total Carbon Footprint to identify the impact of our activities, uncover the areas that present the greatest opportunities for action to reduce our emissions and track the results of our improvement initiatives.

For our owned operations (Scope 1 & 2):

• We have developed a detailed roadmap to reduce emissions from plants, warehouses and main offices;
• We are focusing on levers such as increasing energy efficiency and shifting to renewable energy.

For our end-to-end emissions (Scope 1, 2 & 3):

• We are working with our suppliers to reduce emissions, rethinking solutions with lower carbon impact, and developing new products;
• We aim to optimise supply chain logistics and our strategy includes internal and network optimisation, decarbonising fleets, and renewable and efficient energy use at distribution centres.

Reducing our impact across our value chain

Climate change poses an increasing risk along our entire value chain and we have a strong responsibility as a global business to address the climate emergency and to limit our environmental footprint in our operations. We have been involved in climate action for decades and we are accelerating our efforts with specific targets to reduce our climate impact.

At 61.7%, the cultivation and production of agricultural raw materials is the biggest source of our Scope 3 emissions. However, we are always evaluating how we source our key ingredients to ensure we minimise our impact. In fact, did you know that the RSPO Certified Segregated sustainable palm oil that we source for our products emits 56% less greenhouse gas emissions than non-certified palm oil?

We also continue to invest in modernising our facilities and implementing new technologies to increase energy efficiency in production, and we are proud to say that all our sites in Europe use 100% renewable electricity.

Our plant in Alfreton (UK) is also our first manufacturing site with 100% power and gas purchased from the grid with REGO (Renewable Energy Guarantees Origin) and RGGO (Renewable Gas Guarantee of Origin) certificates respectively. Additionally, we will be extending the ISO 14001 certification to our Alfreton site, representing the adoption of an environmental management system which adds another layer on top of the basic founding principle of full compliance with applicable environmental laws.

These are some of the important steps we are taking on our journey to reach our 2030 goals – we are proud of the progress we have made and are dedicated to further strengthening our commitments as we continue along our journey.

Looking ahead

We feel privileged that our brands like Nutella, Kinder, and Ferrero Rocher have become family favourites across the UK over the last 50 years. With this comes a responsibility to make products that have Quality at Heart – delivering not only a great taste but produced in a way that also protects our planet.

We will continue to build on our strong foundation of targets grounded in climate science and the actions we have taken across our value chain to help to tackle climate change and will continue to share our progress along the way.