We promote the most efficient use of natural resources and help farmers protect the environment by supporting the development of agricultural practices and systems that provide soil health and enhance biodiverse habitats. We help farmer to enhance biodiversity, ensure connectivity in agricultural landscapes, and optimize water use and water protection.
Our commitment to environmental protection is clearly set out in our Syngenta Group Code of Conduct and Syngenta Group HSE Policy. As a leading global agribusiness committed to sustainable agriculture, we have a responsibility to protect the environment. Our industry leading commitment to environmental performance plays a key part in developing and protecting our reputation with all our stakeholders.
In our Crop Protection and Seeds business units, the HSE Policy and Standards, together with our Environmental Codes of Practice, establish minimum requirements that must be followed to reduce potential soil, surface water and groundwater contamination. We believe that good environmental management is everyone's responsibility. Our leaders are expected to champion our standards and encourage every employee in every location to take personal responsibility for reducing our environmental impacts.
Read more about how we strive to make our operations more sustainable
In our Crop Protection and Seeds business units, our tailored Health, Safety and Environmental management system (HSE MS) is our framework of procedures and practices that enables us to implement our HSE Policy and Standards and monitor and improve our HSE performance.
The HS MS equips leaders to take ownership of HSE in their areas of responsibility. We also have a mandatory HSE Policy and Standards eLearning training to ensure employees fully understand their HSE responsibilities and accountabilities. We believe our HSE MS is more comprehensive than current ISO and EMAS systems as we include more demanding risk management and reporting requirements. Where there is a local or customer requirement to do so we have also secured ISO certification.
Sites are required to undergo an annual review of their HSE MS to ensure its continued effectiveness. We also maintain a formal, internal HSE audit process to verify compliance and identify improvement opportunities. Our HSE MS requires operations to understand their use of resources and implement programs to conserve natural resources; reduce impacts on the environment and adopt more environmentally sustainable practices. This is needed to ensure regulatory compliance, minimize potential liabilities, promote sustainability, and maintain business continuity.
Local environmental laws and regulations, and the way in which they are enforced, vary greatly around the world. We treat all local requirements as the minimum standard and often go much further as part of our consistent approach to compliance across our business.
In our Crop Protection and Seeds business units, we maintain Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) management systems across all our sites to ensure compliance with our own standards and external regulations. Sites asses their compliance with Syngenta HSE requirements annually.
Compliance and risk management is integrated and reviewed in all functions of Syngenta as part of operational management and governance. Risk and compliance issues are addressed and, if necessary, escalated to the respective business unit leadership team.
In Syngenta Group’s Good Growth Plan, we commit to strive for carbon neutral agriculture. This includes a bold commitment to reduce the carbon intensity of the entire operations of Syngenta Crop Protection and Syngenta Seeds by at least 50% by 2030.
To achieve our reduction target, we will focus on improving the efficiency of our manufacturing processes, design and implement site-based energy-saving programs, increase the share of renewable sources of energy, and partner with our crop protection and seed suppliers to reduce their carbon footprint.
Read more about our environmental performance in our ESG Report (p.93) and on our Climate Change page.
Syngenta's own active substances that meet the requirements of REACH Article 15.1 are considered exempt from REACH regulations. However, we manufacture and import raw materials, intermediates and co-formulants that are covered by, and registered under REACH.
Syngenta constantly monitors REACH, China Order 12, UK REACH, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of the United States, and many other globally relevant chemical and environmental regulations to ensure we comply with the respective requirements.