Maple Leaf Foods is the first major food company in the world to become carbon neutral. We have achieved carbon neutrality by aggressively reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and investing in high impact environmental projects to neutralize the unavoidable emissions that remain. And, we are the only food company in Canada to set Science-Based Targets (SBTs) that are aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Importantly, SBTs require that we reduce our emissions even as we grow.

Maple Leaf Foods is on a mission to become the most sustainable protein company on earth. We recognize that creating nutrient-dense protein like ours takes resources, and today we are proud that we are staking our future on being carbon neutral today, and every day going forward.

Since 2015, we have significantly advanced against our emissions reduction target of 50% by 2025, one of the most aggressive environmental reduction targets in the food industry. This is achieved by pursuing efficiency gains across our network, investing in conservation technologies and rigorous monitoring. To neutralize our remaining emissions, we are investing in high-quality, credible and verifiable projects that reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to bring our net carbon footprint to zero.

Maple Leaf Foods is the first food company in Canada to set SBTs and one of only three animal protein companies to do so globally. Science-Based Targets are emission reduction targets aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

As part of the agreement, Maple Leaf has pledged to reduce our absolute scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30% by 2030 from a 2018 base year. These are emissions produced directly by our operations and from the electricity we purchase. We have also pledged to reduce scope 3 GHG emissions 30% per tonne of product produced over the same period. These are emissions produced by our supply chain including raw materials, feed and ingredients we purchase for the packaging and distribution of our products.

No company that we are aware of that has achieved carbon neutrality has done so without investing in environmental projects through offset purchases, and we are no different. By investing in offset projects, we have established an internal price on carbon. This will help to incentivize future energy reduction projects and drive reductions against our targets. Our goal is to meet our SBTs for additional emissions reductions, so we then have to obtain fewer and fewer offsets.

We are investing in credible and independently verified projects that eliminate carbon emissions including: landfill gas, biomass, renewable energy, composting and forestry. We are also supporting wind power projects to address our electricity consumption. The projects are located throughout Canada and the United States and are verifiable using third parties.