[Press Release] VIVESCIA Group’s 2030 climate targets certified by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi FLAG)

VIVESCIA Group has made climate change a key part of its sustainable development strategy (LINK). As such, the Group submitted its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets to the SBTi in February 2023. 
The result of work started more than two years ago, involving all VIVESCIA’s teams, the Group’s climate roadmap aims to quantify, evaluate, model and implement ways to reduce GHG emissions. It was approved in the autumn of 2022 by the Board of Administrators and the Executive Committee based on two unifying targets for 2030. 
 

“Faced with the climate emergency, and as a major player in the grain and plant-based food industries, in 2021 we made the decision go further and set a new 10-year trajectory. Our decision to sign up for a robust, world-renowned standard based on the Paris Climate Agreement – the SBTi – defines our ambition for 2030: to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions we are directly responsible for, as well as to encourage the reduction of emissions we are only indirectly responsible for (scope 3 emissions), in particular those from upstream agricultural activities. The SBTi’s approval of our 2030 roadmap strengthens our belief in the targets we have set ourselves and shows that VIVESCIA Group has chosen the right answer to the climate challenge we all face,” explains VIVESCIA Group’s CSR Director and the director of the TRANSITIONS programme, Valérie Frapier.

In parallel with the reduction of GHG emissions, VIVESCIA is working on the fundamental challenge of adapting to the existing impact of climate change, the second pillar of the Group’s climate strategy. A first assessment of the impact of climate change on crops between 2030 and 2050, based on the IPCC’s scenarios, has been carried out in the Cooperative’s territory (North-East France). VIVESCIA’s agronomy teams are working to implement these roadmaps with cooperative members. Other assessments are underway to determine the impact of climate change on the Group’s processing subsidiaries.

Mitigation, adaptation, and the resilience of agricultural and agri-food chains; faced with these challenges, and due to its unique vertical integration from field to fork, VIVESCIA Group and its grain processing industries are working alongside their customers and cooperative members in its region. The TRANSITIONS programme is an example of this. A collective, cooperative programme that includes the entire value chain, the aim is to help nearly 1,000 farmers in North-East France to transition to more resilient, low-carbon, biodiversity-friendly agriculture by 2026. This programme is a model for a more sustainable agri-food and energy industry.

*Created following the Paris Agreement, and a product of a collaboration between several institutions around the world, including the UN, the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) is now the benchmark in terms of companies’ carbon trajectories: https://sciencebasedtargets.org/