Move the Date

When I was born in 1971, mankind depleted approximately as much as our planet was able to replenish. Since then, the world population has more than doubled. We now need almost 1.6 blue planets to sustain our lifestyle. With the growing and more affluent world population and not enough concerted efforts to reverse the trend, we are well on track to needing more than two planets. By then, humanity’s climatic comfort zone is gone for good.

 At Bayer, we have become a little bit obsessed with Earth Overshoot Day. The Earth Overshoot Day marks when we have exploited the planet’s capacity to put up with humanity. For some decades now, the growing world population lives beyond planetary boundaries. This year, Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 22nd. The year before, the day fell into end of July for the first time.

 As a direct consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, we see a reversal of the consistent trend of ever earlier Earth Overshoot Days. As measures to curb the pandemic kicked in, profound changes to how we live with massive negative consequences for the lives of billions pushed the date back three weeks. It’s notable that even a radical reduction of consumption does not move the needle that much. All the disruptions in the effort to stop a virus only got us to the level we have reached in 2005.

 As we took a closer look at the factors that move the date in either direction, we noticed how uniquely Bayer is positioned to have an impact on the world. This was a scary and humbling discovery. Fueled by our mission of “Science for a Better Life”, when looking at the data, we realized that sustainability needed to find its place at the core of our business and innovation strategy. Bayer’s success as a business depends on betting on a transformative agenda of radical decarbonization and more inclusive growth.

How to push back the date

According to the organizer’s calculations, the world could push back the date in many ways. Below, you can find the most critical interventions chosen this year to strategically push back the date.

• 8 days for reforesting 350m hectares: We need to reverse the trend of deforestation. Bayer’s relevance reaches from our Environmental Sciences business to provide products to aid afforestation, crop science innovation that allows for production of more food on less land and removing bad actors that deforest illegally from our supply chain all the way to the recently launched carbon capture business model.
• 90 days from reducing carbon emissions by 50%: We are committed to decarbonization and support the UN 1.5?C Business Ambition. As a first step, by aligning us with the Science-Based Target Initiative (SBTi), we announced earlier this month 2030 targets that contribute to limiting global warming to 1.5?C in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. In the coming years, we will take out more than 11Mt of carbon from our operations alone. To become carbon neutral, we will invest up to 700M EUR in ten years in a mix of energy efficiency, green energy supply and purchasing of carbon offsetting credits. We will also to extend carbon reduction targets to our suppliers and work with farmers on reducing emissions on their fields.
• 21 days from leveraging existing technologies: We will invest 500M EUR over ten years in energy savings and green energy to get there. It’s notable that the contribution of introducing state-of-the art crop science technology including no-till-farming and dry-seeded rice seem not even included in the organization’s calculation. Inclusive growth strategies, technology transfer and stimulation of transformation might push this even further.
• 17 days if we reduced the global meat consumption by 50%: I am very skeptical new consumer classes in countries that begin to see economic success will abstain from craving animal proteins. Nevertheless, Bayer’s vegetable seeds business and work on alternative proteins as well as new investments like our recent one in vertical farming will provide plant-based alternatives. Where per capita consumption of meat is high, diets need to be rebalanced. While this transition of nutrition habits is underway, our innovation pipeline from digital farming to plants that resist extreme weather events and alternatives to industrial fertilizers will create conditions for permissibility of meat consumption through reducing the ecological side effects in our part of the meat value chain.
• 13 days if we cut food waste in half: When people think talks food waste, they often look at what happens to food after it is purchased – often it rots or is thrown away before being consumed. But food loss can happen from when a seed is planted onwards and way before it reaches consumers. Without state-of-the-art applications of crop protection or seeds that can help plants protect themselves, crop losses could amount to 40% of total production. We also help to avoid losses post-harvest from aflatoxins, rot, pests and rodents, and other food safety concerns. While our impact here is already notable, we work feverishly on new solutions. Shorter corn varieties, for example, are currently intensively tested in the field as they withstand against storms that annually claim more than 10% of the corn grown in the world.
• 49 days if every other family had one child less and motherhood was postponed for two years: This is where the unique position of Bayer comes in. Investments in access to family planning generate hands-down the highest returns of any development funding. Despite this, more than 200 million women have no access to modern contraception and many are confronted with unwanted pregnancies. 40% of all people in Africa, about twice as much than in the US, are below 15 years old. Let’s close this gap before it widens. We will build additional supply capacity and partner with others to even reach rural communities in the poorest parts of the world with modern contraception. In addition, we will focus on scaled-up women’s health programs, micronutrient access, vector control to fight malaria and neglected tropical diseases to make families healthier. Given how many days intervention in this area could contribute to pushing back Earth Overshoot Day, and how relevant our pharmaceutical- and consumer-health-businesses are to achieve this, we put equal weight on both the social and environmental dimensions in our sustainability approach.

The better I understand the contribution Bayer will make to create impact that effectively pushes back the date and innovation that reduces effects of our business pushing the world in the opposite direction, the more optimistic I become. The world will be able to reverse the trend. For this to happen, corporations need to make this effort their purpose. We need to measure impact and create quantitative targets which will be independently audited. Our shareholders encouraged us to go in this direction when they approved a remuneration scheme that includes 20% for targets revolving around decarbonization and inclusive growth.

We will share our progress at every coming Earth Overshoot Day and build coalitions that work hard to ensure you will hear from us later and later in the year.

#120months - the series