Why we care
Climate change and environmental degradation threaten agriculture and humankind. Industry, government, business, and civil society face growing societal pressure to join forces to address these challenges and take action. This is accompanied by increasing regulation applying to environmental issues.
At Lindt & Sprüngli we endeavor to minimize our environmental footprint across the entire value chain, from upstream pre-production to downstream post-production activity. Our business essentially relies on a secure, steady supply of raw ingredients. We also strive to add value for customers, while reducing our negative environmental impacts from the production of both our chocolate and its packaging.
We pay specific attention to contribute to the preservation of an intact environment by focusing on five key areas: biodiversity, climate, water, waste, and packaging.
Biodiversity embraces all organisms, including plants, humans, and animals. A lack of biodiversity and healthily functioning ecosystems puts the production of cocoa and other agricultural ingredients that our business depends on at risk. Forests play a central role in mitigating climate change, protecting biodiversity, and supporting the livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities. Agricultural commodity production has had, and continues to have, a detrimental effect on forestation and natural ecosystems. As a consumer goods company sourcing agricultural ingredients, we recognize our role and responsibility in addressing commodity-led deforestation in the landscapes we source from. Tackling deforestation forms a key part of our endeavors to protect biodiversity and meet our science-based climate targets by 2030 and 2050. We have a responsibility to prevent and discourage farm expansion into valuable forests in our upstream supply chain.
Climate: The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2023 ranks the failure to mitigate climate change as one of the most severe global threats to society and the economy. Shifts in climatic conditions are negatively impacting biodiversity, water availability and human rights. Risks to the future of our business extend across the value chain, from the availability of raw materials to the impact of price increases.
Water is a natural resource that is vital to agriculture and chocolate production. Erratic or reduced water availability can negatively impact production volumes. The efficient use of water and the appropriate handling of wastewater within our production processes are top priorities when it comes to avoiding detrimental environmental and financial effects at a local level.
Waste: Wasting raw materials, food, or packaging can have significant and extensive negative impacts on the environment and human health. Reducing waste can help lower GHG emissions, pollution, and pressure on land and water resources, while increasing cost efficiency. We currently focus on loss of semi-finished products in our production.
Packaging is critical to food safety, to protecting the quality of our products during transport, as well as to informing and delighting consumers. At the same, packaging – and plastics in particular – can have negative environmental impacts. Packaging is one of Lindt & Sprüngli’s main operational waste streams. Designing for recyclability, integrating sustainable packaging materials, and endeavoring to reduce material usage all contribute to our commitment to decreasing our environmental footprint.
How we care
Lindt & Sprüngli is committed to addressing deforestation in the agricultural supply chains related to our chocolate production. Through our Deforestation Policy we set out our aspiration and approach to addressing deforestation in supply chains. We aim to achieve this through performing deforestation risk-based due diligence and are guided by best practices defined by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in the Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) guidance and the Accountability Framework.
For climate, we are evolving our approach by aligning with the best available science on tackling climate change and taking into account our carbon footprint including direct and indirect emissions. Our commitment to science-based targets (SBTs) is driven by the ultimate goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
With this commitment, we bring our ambitions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
We are preparing our global business to be able to respond appropriately to the effects of climate change, and to reduce emissions from our full value chain. This means integrating the management of climate-related issues into our day-to-day decision-making for a thorough approach to meeting our emission reduction commitments. For more information regarding our climate governance, please also refer to our Roadmap to net-zero.
The introduction of an environmental pillar to our operational excellence program, the Lindt Performance Way (LPW), reflects our commitment to optimizing our contribution to an intact environment. This addresses activity focused on increasing energy efficiency, reducing harmful emissions, optimizing water management and reducing material waste resulting from our chocolate production and our packaging.
We address the environmental impact of our packaging through our Sustainable Packaging Initiative. We proactively challenge our entire packaging portfolio (consumer, transportation and display packaging) and strive to reduce packaging materials used, increase recycled and certified content, and achieve recyclability of our packaging. Where our quality standards permit, we use recyclable materials.
The Lindt Performance Way
The Lindt Performance Way (LPW) is deployed across our production companies and dedicated to continuous improvement in efficiency, effectiveness, and safety. Through it, we seek to create value with fewer resources and zero loss processes.1 The LPW helps us identify process losses so we can introduce standards and systems to minimize and prevent them in the future.
Our Group Operations team oversees the LPW program, helping Lindt & Sprüngli subsidiaries align their management strategies, production procedures, and efforts with loss measurement, analysis, reduction, and prevention methodologies. Local operations teams are responsible for implementing the LPW, with a focus on process control and standards management. The results, and local LPW maturity level, are monitored and assessed annually.
The LPW has resulted in tangible improvements to our quality, productivity, service level, and environmental performances since its inception. We are currently piloting the LPW in other areas along our supply chain, including with our production partners and co-packers.
1This approach is based on the Lean and TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) methodologies.
Our environment-related documents and methodologies
- Environmental Policy
- Deforestation Policy
- Supplier Code of Conduct and Compliance Declaration
- Cocoa No-Deforestation & Agroforestry Action Plan
- Cocoa No-Deforestation & Agroforestry Action Plan Progress Report
- Corporate Carbon Footprint Methodology
- Roadmap to net-zero