Benchmarking Sustainability Goals: Food Processors

A quantitative analysis of the sustainability goals of eight major food processors: ADM, H.J. Heinz, Bunge, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg, Kraft Foods, Nestle and Tyson.

Goals signal intent and drive behavior. Some companies use public announcements of sustainability goals to signal their commitment to become sustainability leaders and to compete for superior positioning with their rivals. In dozens of interviews with sustainability executives, however, we have observed that companies’ practices for selecting and managing sustainability goals vary widely.

The framework presented here allows companies to benchmark their own goals against those of other companies.

The source of the data used in this analysis is the companies’ latest published sustainability reports. Published 2011.

Pages: 5; Figures: 3

Outline

Key Questions

Key Finding

Goals and Targets Drive Change and Competitive Differentiation

Food Producers’ Goals Are Overwhelmingly Focused on Operations

Food Processors Publicly Adopt an Average of 6 Sustainability Goals

GHG Emissions Receives Most Focus; Water Less So

Sources

Methodology

Figures

Figure 1 Breakdown of Sustainability Goals by Major AreaFigure 2 Number of Sustainability Goals per Company, Current and Future Years

Figure 3 Number of Goals per Issue

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