Community Involvement
Cargill integrates and supports initiatives to promote the country’s sustainable development. One example of this is the company’s participation in the Soy Moratorium since 2006, when the initiative was launched by the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (Abiove) and the National Association of Cereal Exporters (Anec). The Soy Moratorium establishes commitment to non-commercialization of soybeans grown in areas of deforestation in the Amazon Biome. The commitment was renewed in 2009 and extended until July 26, 2010. The Soy Working Group, which brings together companies and NGOs, has established four work priorities: examination of monitoring methodology, Ecological Economic Zoning (EEZ) of the Amazon Biome, encouragement of property registration and compliance with legislation.
Cargill takes part in the Round Table on Responsible Soy, which is an international forum created to discuss the commodity’s sustainability. The aim is to set principles and criteria, decided by consensus and approved by the production chain, for the production of soybeans in an economically viable, environmentally sound and socially just manner, and disseminate these practices.
The company also participates in the Brazilian Strategic Soy Committee (CESB), Public Interest Organization of Society (OSCIP) launched in 2009 with the mission to develop strategies to mobilize agents of the production chain and increase Brazilian soybean productivity with sustainability.
Through Cevasa, Cargill also sponsors the Environmental Protocol of the Sugar-Alcohol Industry created by the Environment and Agriculture Departments of the State of São Paulo and the Sugar-Alcohol Industry Union (Única), which includes the Green Ethanol Program. The company worked alongside Cevasa so that its suppliers and Canagril producers, its partner in that joint venture, created an association to sign the protocol and environmental guidelines that pertain to them. By reducing the burning of sugar cane straw and co-generation in plants in the State of São Paulo, in addition to the restoration of riparian forests, expectations are that 62.5 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) will not have been emitted by 2014.
In the social sphere, the company is a signatory of On the Right Track, a corporate pact proposed by Childhood Brazil and the Ethos Institute for Business and Social Responsibility. Its purpose is to mobilize governments, companies and third sector organizations to fight the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents along Brazilian highways. The company is committed to engaging in preventive actions and seeks to raise awareness among both internal and outsourced truck drivers through distribution of pamphlets. Furthermore, they have signed the National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor, whose coordination and monitoring fall to a committee composed by the Ethos Institute for Business and Social Responsibility, Social Observatory Institute, by the NGO Reporter Brazil, and the International Labor Organization (ILO). Its goal is to create tools so that the business sector and the Brazilian society do not market products from suppliers who adopt slave labor practices. The company is committed to not hiring any service or product appearing on the Dirty List released by the federal government.
The Cargill Foundation is also associated with the Group of Institutes, Foundations, and Enterprises, established in 1995, that works to improve and disseminate concepts and practices on the use of private funds for the development of the common good. The initiative brings together 123 members who jointly invest over R$ 1.3 billion per year. It also contributes to Ação Fome Zero, NGO formed by companies and entrepreneurs committed to the country’s sustainable development, and participates in the +Unidos Group, a partnership of the United States Diplomatic Mission in Brazil with US companies established abroad by United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The idea is to optimize and enhance US CSR investments in Brazil towards sustainability, in order to achieve the Millennium Goals. In 2009, the company also participated in more than 50 associations, across the various segments in which it operates.
