Kraft Heinz Expands Commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility

The Kraft Heinz Company, a global food and beverage company, has announced that it is expanding its commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and decreasing its environmental footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, energy, water and waste in its operations by 15 percent globally by 2020.

“As one of the world’s leading food and beverage companies, we hold ourselves to a high standard for driving social and environmental change,” said Kraft Heinz Chief Executive Officer Bernardo Hees in a statement. “Our global CSR initiatives focus on improving our planet, its people and the communities where we live and work, and are critical components to our continued growth strategy.” 

The company has already started to maximize efficient energy and water consumption and reduce or divert waste at each of its 86 manufacturing plants, and, over the next three years, the company will focus on making a sustainable different in the fight to eliminate global hunger and malnutrition by donating $1 billion nutritious meals to people in need by 2021.

“Integrating sustainability across our entire business is a top priority,” said Kraft Heinz Senior Vice President of Corporate and Government Affairs Michael Mullen in a statement. “We developed these goals based on input from consumers, customers, investors and employees, among others, and we look forward to a continued dialogue with all stakeholders about how we see our values coming to life in our business and our brands.”

Additionally, the company is committed to creating a more sustainable supply chain by establishing responsible farm-to-market ingredient and material-sourcing policies and practices. For example, one of its new policies states that the company will procure palm oil products in an ethical, transparent and sustainable manner, and it will only purchase palm oil and derivatives 100 percent certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil because the company recognizes that poorly managed palm oil cultivation can result in deforestation, loss of biodiversity, forced and child labor and human trafficking.

Kraft Heinz is also committed to the human treatment of animals and has a policy that requires its suppliers to have a zero tolerance policy for willful acts of animal abuse or neglect.