Sustainable Revenue: 81% of Chr. Hansen's Products Support SDGs

Image credit: Chr. Hansen

As allegedly the first company ever, Chr. Hansen -- a Danish bioscience giant that produces natural ingredients for the food, beverage, dietary supplements and agricultural industry -- has conducted an extensive analysis to map its entire product portfolio of more than 3,000 products against the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The analysis shows that 81 percent of Chr. Hansen’s gross revenue contributes to SDGs 2 (Zero Hunger), 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing) and 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) by promoting sustainable agriculture, improving global health and reducing food waste.

The new report -- Let’s grow our future. Naturally. How ingredients contribute to the UN Global Goals -- launched today at Sustainable Brands ‘17 Copenhagen, together with the UN Global Compact Danish Network. It has been assured by PwC, one of the world’s largest auditing and consulting companies.

“Chr. Hansen has taken a new approach to document how the company supports the UN Global Goals through its activities,” said Jens Pultz Pedersen, Director at PwC. “Since there is no generally accepted standard for how this can be done, it has been an exciting process to undertake an assurance engagement, and provide advice and sparring around controlling and data quality, and thereby support this new form of reporting progress.”

“The result makes me proud to work for Chr. Hansen,” says Director of Sustainability Annemarie Meisling. “Sustainability has always been part of the company DNA, but now we can document our impact.”

Areas of impact
The company has translated its business impact into its contribution to the UN Global Goals in the following areas:

• Improving food and the environment by increasing productivity and yield, reducing waste (ex: through bioprotective solutions that keep products fresher for longer), substituting artificial ingredients (ex: by replacing sorbate in dairy products and synthetic colors in beverages) and increasing food safety (ex: through cultures that reduce the risk of listeria in meat)
• Improving human and animal health by enhancing animal welfare and promoting health and well-being (ex: through probiotics [for both people and animals]); reducing salt, sugar, fat and lactose; and ensuring access to affordable and available nutrition (ex: through adjusted packaging sizes, lower prices or partnerships with NGOs to establish sustainable production programs)

The company points out the fact that the majority of its gross revenue contributes to the SDGs underlines its relevance now and going forward.

“Every day, Chr. Hansen’s ingredients are consumed by more than 1 billion people worldwide,” says CEO Cees de Jong. “This reach gives us a unique opportunity to address some of the global challenges and impact the UN Global Goals with our core products within natural plant health, natural bioprotection for food, and probiotics for animal and human health. This is indeed a meaningful cause to work for and it makes Chr. Hansen a truly relevant company in the world.”
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Measuring positive and negative impact
​Chr. Hansen’s products are produced using natural resources and the company says it works to show the same care and awareness throughout its production processes — continuously trying to reduce its energy consumption and any negative environmental and social impacts. It reports on these efforts annually in its sustainability report.

Author
This article was originally posted on  www.SustainableBrands.com. Sustainable Brands is the leading global community of business innovators working to shape the future of commerce world wide, and a content partner of S-HUB.