As we approach the fourth year of our Corporate Social Responsibility audits, it has become a good time to recap what has happened in the past three years and look ahead to what is coming. When we formally started with the CSR performance ladder, it became evident that as a family company, we already have a sustainable mindset in the sense that we want the company to sustain for the next generation to take over. It is with this way of thinking that we increased our efforts on how to make Luiten Food future-proof in the long term.
We have based our CSR management system on seven themes that we and our stakeholders deemed important for us to monitor and tackle. Below are some key highlights of the past few years. For information on all themes, make sure to read the sustainability report of 2022 here.
Since our baseline of 2019, we have made significant investments in our solar panel infrastructure. This has enabled us to reduce our non-renewable energy usage and subsequent carbon emissions by roughly 20%. With this result, we are on target to reach carbon neutrality in scopes 1 & 2 by 2030.
Furthermore, local options for biofuels are opening up again, and serious effort is being made to implement the use of HVO100 in all of our owned fleet. This would further reduce our emissions by 40%. We believe that reducing and switching energy sources is the way forward, only compensating for the small remainder of emissions that are left.
As mentioned before, our CSR report is published every year on our website to give our stakeholders a transparent overview of our sustainability performance over the last three years. Last year, significant effort was made to make our reporting “CSRD proof” well ahead of schedule. To facilitate this, we have implemented the full GRI standards, which enable interested parties to objectively compare companies across and within industries. We have planned a consultation session with our accountants to see how we can integrate our CSR report into our financial statements to create one consolidated performance report.
As these are the two themes that stand closest to our products themselves, it is important to always have up-to-date information about our products and their suppliers. We want our customers to make a well-informed choice about which products best fit their needs. To facilitate this, we are planning to create a supplier portal where suppliers are asked to upload sustainability information, which is then compared across suppliers. With this information, we are able to provide every customer with the right product and can be more proactive in sharing sustainability information about our products.
We are always looking for ways to further improve our sustainability system and performance. So, if there is anything you would like to suggest or discuss, feel free to send an email to csr@luitenfood.com.
