Carbon Neutral Company
We’re committed to meaningful action to protect our planet. We set bold, science-based targets to reduce our carbon footprint, eliminated, reduced and neutralized our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and a portion of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and proudly became carbon neutral in 2019.
Becoming the world’s first major carbon neutral food company was a big step in our fight against climate change.
We support carbon offset projects
We support 11 high-impact environmental carbon offset projects across North America that help us neutralize our remaining, unavoidable emissions.
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Merom Farms
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Technology type: Biomass to energy
Emissions impact: Reduction
Certification: CSA GroupMerom Farms is a large commercial greenhouse operation in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia that consists of 36 acres of covered greenhouse area. The farm initially used fossil-fuel fired boilers that burned natural gas to operate year-round in a cold climate. As natural gas is costly and negatively impacts the environment, the farm upgraded to the use of biomass for heat. This fuel switch from fossil fuels to biomass for heat generation results in reduced emissions.
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Coast Environmental Chemainus Composting
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Technology type: Composting
Emissions impact: Avoidance
Certification: CSA GroupThe Coast Environmental Chemainus Composting Facility is an anaerobic digestion project in Chemainus, British Columbia. The feedstock for the anaerobic digester consists of biosolids, food waste and yard/garden waste supplied from surrounding regions. Emissions are avoided through the diversion of waste material that would of otherwise ended up in landfill.
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Net Zero Waste Abbotsford Composting
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Technology type: Composting
Emissions impact: AvoidanceThe Net Zero Waste Inc. successfully designed a food and agricultural commercial composting facility for the City of Abbotsford, British Columbia. The facility is responsible for the treatment of organic waste from Abbotsford’s residents and provides a vital processing option for commercial and agricultural wastes produced in the Fraser Valley. The diversion of waste and the use of waste heat energy recovery results in avoidance of methane from anaerobic degradation of the waste.
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Biomass to Energy Project Pool
Location: Ontario, Canada
Technology type: Biomass to energy
Emissions impact: Reduction
Certification: CSA GroupThe project covers various locations across Ontario and converts biomass into energy and offsets nonrenewable thermal energy production along with avoidance of methane emissions from the decomposition of organic wastes in landfills.
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University Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Project
Location: Indiana, USA
Technology type: Energy efficiency and renewables
Emissions impact: Avoidance
Certification: Verified Carbon StandardBall State University in Indiana has pioneered the use of Verified Carbon Standard’s methodology designed for higher education institutions. The projects across campus reduce energy consumption and create onsite renewable energy generation, resulting in lower emissions from reduced fossil fuel electricity generation.The campus reinvests the revenue from carbon credit sales into further emissions reduction projects on campus.
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Foam Blowing Agent
Location: Virginia, USA
Technology type: HFC replacement
Emissions impact: Reduction
Certification: American Carbon RegistryThis foam blowing agent project is in Winchester, Virginia. Its focus is on transitioning to a blowing agent with a lower Global Warming Potential (GWP) that’s used during manufacturing processes, which results in greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
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Rochelle Municipal Landfill Gas
Location: Illinois, USA
Technology type: Landfill gas
Emissions impact: Reduction
Certification: Climate Action ReserveThis project voluntarily captures and destroys methane from the landfill through a combination of gas wells, conveyance piping, and condensate removal equipment. The combined process destroys gas at either an open flare or an energy generation facility.
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Maple Hill Landfill Gas
Location: Missouri, USA
Technology type: Landfill gas
Emissions impact: Reduction
Certification: Climate Action ReserveThe landfill gas is collected through various processes of this project and is destructed in the end at an open flame, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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Indigo Carbon
Technology type: Regenerative agriculture
Emissions impact: Reduction/Removal
Certification: Climate Action ReserveIndigo Ag helps farmers sustainably feed the planet. Companies can purchase verified carbon credits that reward individual farmers for adopting regenerative agriculture practices that lead to reductions or removals or carbon.
Note: We purchased credits from Indigo in 2022, but did not retire or require the credits to neutralize our carbon inventory in 2022.
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Farmer’s Edge
Location: Manitoba, Canada
Technology type: Regenerative agriculture
Emissions impact: Reduction/Removal
Certification: CSA GroupFarmer’s Edge works with farmers to enrich soil and grow more using less through data-driven farming practices. The work results in transparent, low carbon grain production and verifiable carbon offsets. Companies that purchase the carbon offsets help farmers actively reduce and sequester carbon and improve soil health and biodiversity.
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Lac-Alfred Wind Project
Location: Quebec, Canada
Technology type: Wind
Emissions impact: Avoidance
Certification: Green-eLocated in the municipalities of Saint-Cléophas, Sainte-Irène, Saint-Zénon-du-Lac-Humqui and the unorganized territory (UT) of Lac-Alfred in the MRC of La Matapédia and in the municipality of La Rédemption and UT Lac-à-la-Croix in the MRC of La Mitis, the project comprises 150 wind turbines supplied by Senvion.
Regenerative Agriculture
Maple Leaf Foods is investing in regenerative agriculture practices within our supply chain to reduce our environmental impact and, outside our supply chain, to support high-quality nature-based solutions that foster sustainable food production and contribute to maintaining our carbon neutral status.
For the second year in a row, we have teamed up with Nutrien, a Canadian company and the world’s largest provider of crop inputs, to expand our work in regenerative agriculture and pilot their new carbon program that aims to provide end-to-end support for growers, drives sustainability and boosts profitability. In 2022, we quadrupled our efforts from the prior year and scaled the program to 100,000 acres of farmland within our supply shed where we source feed ingredients in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
To learn more about our regenerative agriculture efforts, visit our 2022 Integrated Report.
Anaerobic Digestion
Anaerobic digestion is a proven and established technology that has the potential to meaningfully reduce GHG emissions and solid waste arising from our animal raising activities and operations while at the same time producing renewable natural gas that could replace our current natural gas consumption at our facilities or inject it back to the grid.
Anaerobic digestion is a process through which bacteria breaks down organic matter – such as animal manure, organic waste, food wastes, or wastewater – and converts the organic matter into renewable natural gas (RNG) and digestate. RNG can be used as a clean energy source to provide heat and generate electricity at our facilities or it can be sold and injected directly into the natural gas pipeline grid or compressed and used as transportation fuel. The digestate is primarily used as a high-quality, low-odour, nutrient-rich fertilizer that can be supplied to local farmer fields.
Should Maple Leaf Foods proceed with anaerobic digestion technology, it would enable Maple Leaf to have a circular economy by converting organic waste streams into useful renewable fuel and other commodities.
What it means to us to be carbon neutral
We’re proud to be the world’s first major carbon neutral food company. Michael McCain, Executive Chairman of the Board, reflects on this day.
Introducing our inaugural
2022 Integrated Report
Our new Integrated Report builds on nearly a decade of sustainability reporting and presents a more holistic view of our Company. We continue to evolve our reporting process every year to meet changes in the reporting and regulatory landscape and growing demands from our stakeholders.