Becoming the world’s first major carbon neutral food company in 2019 was our biggest and boldest step in tackling climate change and providing wholesome, real food for Canadians for generations to come.

As our planet gradually warms, that leads to environmental issues we can feel right here in Canada, as well as around the world.

That’s why Maple Leaf is the first major food company in the world to become carbon neutral, using Science-Based Targets to reduce emissions as quickly as possible.

If we don’t deal with this today, future generations will be dealing with it tomorrow – so let’s work together to fix this now!

It’s Important to Know!

How we became carbon neutral

It all started with a sustainability commitment to reduce our environmental footprint. When we realized that wasn’t enough, we decided to become the world’s first major carbon neutral food company. Here’s our carbon neutral story.

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We Are Environmentally Responsible

We’re not waiting for solutions to protect the planet – we’re creating them. In the fight against climate change, action matters!

The protein industry plays an enormous role in nourishing billions of people, but it also consumes resources and impacts our planet.

We are continually working toward more sustainable food production and contributing to a more sustainable protein industry.

The future of the planet and the food industry depends on all of us.

We’re reducing our impact on the planet

We recognize the deep interconnections between climate change and nature loss and understand the urgency for action to prevent catastrophic changes to our climate and to nature and biodiversity.

That is why we are a carbon neutral company and are working on transformative projects to minimize our impact on the climate, and preserve, restore, and regenerate natural resources and the land.

We track our performance, and we’ve implemented several initiatives across our operations and supply chain to reduce our environmental impact.

We are carbon neutral now!

Becoming the world’s first major carbon neutral food company in 2019 was a big step in our fight against climate change.

In 2023, we celebrated four years of this major milestone.

Our carbon management strategy to maintain carbon neutrality involves prioritizing the avoidance and reductions of our greenhouse gas emissions and for the remaining and currently unavoidable emissions, purchasing high-quality, verified carbon offsets against our rigorous policies and principles to neutralize our emissions. We have neutralized all our remaining Scope 1 & 2 emissions and 6.9% our Scope 3 emissions.

The Scope 3 emissions in our offset program include supplier emissions arising from plant-based ingredients, external purchased primary meats, owned hogs grown by third-party producers, third party contracted hog and poultry producers and feed equivalent with the product volumes of key brands.

Water

Water is a vital factor for many activities of the food system, including agriculture, food processing and consumption.

It is an utmost priority for us to minimize water use at our facilities and barns where possible, prevent negative impacts on local waterways from our operations and supply chain and adhere to the strict provincial regulations for proper manure management.

Solid waste and food waste

Solid waste and food waste sent to landfill have detrimental effects on the environment and local communities.

Reducing the production of solid waste at our facilities, improving our landfill diversion rate, and reducing the amount of food loss and waste arising from our business are top priorities for us.

Developing more sustainable packaging

Reducing packaging waste like plastics is a global environmental priority. We are innovating and developing sustainable packaging for our products and have developed ambitious sustainable packaging targets.