Taking care of the planet

We acknowledge that we cannot create our products without having an environmental impact and are committed to measuring and addressing our emissions. These emissions are classified as Scope 1 and 2 – those owned or controlled by Upfield, both directly (like the carbon used in processing our ingredients) and indirectly (like the purchase of energy to run a factory), and Scope 3 – the climate impact of our products requiring refrigeration, for example. Our goal is to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions to zero by 2030 and cut Scope 3 by the same timescale.

We are putting in a lot of work to implement our carbon transition plan to help us meet these Scope 1 and 2 targets and to extend these plans to Scope 3 in line with the requirements of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which we committed to in 2023.

We have disclosed our climate impact to CDP and were awarded a B in the first year of reporting. We have also partnered climate experts to conduct a climate scenario analysis aligned with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

More details of our TCFD assessment and findings, can be found in our TCFD report here, and further details of our climate work can be found in the ESG GRI Addendum

We know that when people choose our plant-based butters & spreads, creams and cheeses instead of dairy versions, that they collectively save 6m tonnes of CO2e annually, based on our global sales volumes - that is around twice our own footprint. By helping more people to switch to our products from their dairy counterparts, we can make an even bigger impact on carbon reduction.

Our research, carried out in partnership with specialist sustainability consultancy Quantis and based on a rigorous, science-based methodology, shows that across Europe and North America, our plant-based butters and spreads have on average a 70% lower climate impact, occupy two-thirds less land and use less than half the water when compared with the same amount of dairy butter.

We carried out Lifecycle Assessments (LCAs) which look at the entire span of a product – from inputs needed to grow the crop, to how it is processed, transported and consumed. These covered 212 of our plant-based butters & spreads sold in 21 different European and North American markets, including brands like Flora, Country Crock, Rama, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. From the research we know that the biggest impact on our own footprint comes from growing crops, which accounts for over 65% of our total carbon footprint.

Compared with 1kg of dairy butter, these LCAs established that the same amount of our plant-based butters and spreads are responsible for 9kg less carbon dioxide equivalents or greenhouse gases, occupy 8m2 less land per year, and use 100 litres less water.

Plant-based foods have a lower carbon footprint that animal and dairy products, involving less water, land, processing and fertiliser. We call this the Upside - the ‘avoided emissions’ or ‘emission savings’, because of customers and chefs choosing to eat one of our plant-based butters and spreads instead of dairy butter. The emissions savings achieved are due to the use of plant-based ingredients in our products instead of animal products. Making dairy butter results in damaging methane emissions from cows, in addition to growing crops for cattle feed. In contrast, plant-based production relies only on the growing of crops. In fact, the average plant-based butter or spread product is responsible for 70% lower emissions than dairy butter.

In 2020, Upfield consumers avoided estimated emissions of up to 6 million metric tonnes of C02 equivalent by choosing plant-based butters and spreads instead of equivalent dairy-based products. This is the same number of emissions as they would have avoided by growing 100 million tree seedlings over a 10-year period.