Humane Practices
Cargill has teams in place to locally identify and measure the risks to which it is exposed.
Cargill maintains structured teams in all countries where it operates in order to properly manage the risks inherent in its business. They identify and measure, at local level, possible risks to which the company is exposed, including marketable security, equipment, plant facilities, and environmental impacts of their operations. Moreover, it has four Corporate Auditing departments located in Singapore, England, the USA, and Brazil – located in São Paulo, the department accounts for all of Latin America. Upon detecting risks related to products or processes, teams from the area elaborate an audit project for the validation of internal controls with tests for identification of possible failures, which helps provide efficiency in management of the units.
Cargill is also recognized worldwide as a company of great expertise in commodities risk management, largely thanks to the internal mechanisms that allow it to offer the market management tools through Cargill Risk Management.
In respect of the environment, the company adopts responsible practices in harmony with its global goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water and energy consumption in its operations. Among examples of this are the search for new technologies and application of solutions such as biomass for the operation of boilers, which ensures energy self-sufficiency at some units. The company also encourages such practices in its production chains.
Investments in research and partnerships with customers and suppliers also ensure the company’s capacity for innovation and development of products and services aligned with the needs of different segments. This aspect of the company, combined with the broad scope of its activities, considerably reduces market risks. Global presence is another important factor to minimize both market risk and that of products or suppliers because it allows quick access to new geographic regions at opportune moments. A crop failure of a certain product in a given region, for example, can be reduced with intensified production in another. This multiplication of input sources also benefits supply of the units.
Some units also adopt measures to mitigate specific risks. In this sense, Cargill Cotton practises Counter Party Risk in line with the global credit policy in collaboration with Soy Complex Fertilizer and Mosaic Fertilizantes (a Cargill Group company) to obtain information about clients without a commercial background in order to avoid default payment or non-delivery of products. It does not acquire more than 20% of production from a single supplier, thus minimizing the chance of shortages, and monitors, on a daily basis, credit limit processes for the textile factories.
All units are also attentive to what is known as the dirty list of farmers and/or factories involved in allegations of slave labor in order to eliminate them from the list of approved suppliers or prevent their entry.
In regard to food safety, the company’s Corporate Group on Food Safety and Regulatory Affairs, located in Minneapolis (USA), has 14 food-science experts that provide support to Business Units from the platform of Food Ingredients. In Brazil there is also a Committee on Regulatory Affairs and Food Safety, which promotes bimonthly discussions on strategic issues of legislation and themes related to authorizations and registrations, packaging and labeling of foods, sector trends and alignment with global guidelines.
