Keeping the Momentum for a More Sustainable Supply Chain…and Planet

"Every investment in innovation should be an investment in sustainability."

If you've kept up with Bayer during the last 18 months or so, you've likely seen or heard this powerful phrase. It is the foundation of our 2030 commitments, and reinforces our pursuit of innovative solutions and thinking that benefit growers, the planet, and society.

This year's Earth Day celebration has me reflecting further about what this pledge truly means.

If you ask the average person to share their thoughts on "sustainability," it is very likely they will speak to environmental impact and how people and organizations preserve natural resources. While that element is important, sustainability extends so much further. It encompasses the sustainability of humankind – social, economic, environmental – or the strategies and actions we implement to preserve and improve our quality of life. It also includes operational sustainability, or how a business maintains and evolves its core practices without endangering future resources.

When we say Bayer continues to invest in sustainability, we mean the entirety of sustainability. During the last year-plus, we've seen the importance of a resilient food supply chain in physically sustaining the world. While the pandemic amplified the need, a strong, sustainable supply chain will be critical to feed a growing population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. To do that, we must be mindful of this confluence of sustainability components and ask how we can better uphold humanity by implementing more environmentally responsible and resource-conscious practices across our operations.

A product requires many years of planning, sourcing, testing, manufacturing, and distribution before reaching the farm – a journey fueled by water, energy, and other resources. Although our Crop Science Product Supply function is the chain that links us to growers, it also is responsible for most our organization's carbon emissions.

To make a more positive impact, we are reducing our footprint and setting an example for growers, society, and other parts of our organization. Across our 130+ sites, we're committed to building a supply chain that leverages technology, data, and science to reduce energy use and resource consumption – protocols that we then can pass along to our customers and partners. And by continuing to invest in new digital innovations, we gain the visibility to make more beneficial and sustainable decisions that bring us closer to our goals.

While we still have plenty of room to improve before the end of 2021 – let alone by 2030 – I would like to acknowledge four areas where we can most effectively refine our Product Supply operations to achieve sustainable progress.

Accomplishing More with Less Water

As the world's population continues to grow, a scarcity of water becomes just as much of a threat to humanity as a depleted food supply. Agriculture in turn must use water more responsibly, as the industry currently accounts for more than half of the world's freshwater use. Our 2030 sustainability roadmap includes established and novel solutions to optimize water usage at sites located in water-scarce areas as well as in the seed production fields managed by our partner-growers.

By implementing automated irrigation systems, we have already conserved 60 percent more water across our research fields than we previously could using traditional methods. We're also taking new measures to reclaim and recycle water across our research and production facilities. In fact, two of our Hawaiian facilities run exclusively on repurposed water, reusing an astounding 18.8 million gallons per day.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Could better directions provide the roadmap agriculture needs to reduce its burden and responsibility for nearly 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions?

Every bit of retained gas helps preserve the environment. And while we're working with growers to reduce on-farm emissions, we also can act more sustainably around them. Our Transportation Management System (TMS) literally drives change by ensuring that we deliver materials to our customers not only on time, but more efficiently. Using blockchain, GPS and data analytics, TMS streamlines routes and delivery schedules to reduce the volume, distance, and fuel usage of each trip.  

Roughly half of Bayer’s entire footprint stems from the energy we use for electricity, cooling, and steaming. That’s 2 million tons of CO2 per year we can reduce, and the good news is that we’re already well underway. From simple steps like reducing steam in our Dormagen facility to bigger initiatives like designing resource-efficient facilities, we’re continually finding ways to fuel more innovation with only a fraction of the energy.

We’ve also pledged to purchase 100% of our energy from renewable sources – we have initiated long- term solutions already in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Spain, and are making significant progress in the US. By driving our innovation with clean power, we also support energy providers with shared sustainability goals. Together, we’re working beyond the farm to clean the air, protect water quality and ensure public health.   

 Pioneering Innovation…

Sustainability in all forms requires continued evolution. For that to happen, we need solutions that can grow and scale with our team and our customers. That's why we're pioneering digital tools and technologies that uncover the new insights and processes to guide more sustainable behaviors and programs in the future.

Digital tools can harness and align data in ways beyond human capability. Given our commitment timeline, we cannot afford to lose precious minutes waiting for results or evaluating fixes. With broader visibility into our supply chain operations, we can quickly identify potential areas for improvement and introduce powerful solutions in less time.

…and Partnering Toward a More Prosperous Future

While we have a clear sustainability vision and confidence in what we can accomplish on our own, we can do so much more by working with others. Sustainability is a universal challenge, and we are one of many large global organizations evaluating operational improvement. Our commitment to open innovation welcomes ideas and solutions from all backgrounds, disciplines, and areas of knowledge to make a sustainable future a reality.

We firmly believe that sustainable progress anywhere makes a difference everywhere. As a co-founder of Together for Sustainability, a cross-industry collaboration of global organizations pursuing greener supply chains, we're working alongside our peers to evaluate opportunities to reduce our supply chain emissions by more than 10 percent during the next decade.

I'm also encouraging our entire Bayer team, from our executives to our interns, to take more direct involvement in this dialogue. Our commitment to open innovation operates on the belief that everyone has something to contribute to these important conversations, and we welcome diverse perspectives to translate our ideas, observations, and knowledge into meaningful change.

As a global company, we can influence how agriculture and supply chains leverage technologies and work together with our grower customers to embrace sustainability. Look for subsequent updates from me sharing our progress – I invite you to follow along as we work to transform agriculture for the long-term benefit of people and the planet.