Climate change is affecting both agriculture and the environment. As a leader in agriculture, we are committed to providing technologies, services and training to help farming become carbon neutral as well as reducing the climate footprint of our operations in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.
We have long worked with farmers to increase soil health. Under our new Good Growth Plan, we are now extending our focus to measure the amount of carbon dioxide that is captured in the soil, helping farmers manage and reduce the greenhouse gases contributed by agriculture. We will also continue our long-standing work to enhance biodiversity on agricultural land and improve soil health.
At the same time, we will reduce the emissions from our own operations and those of our entire supply chain, adding to our efforts towards carbon neutral agriculture.
We have set 3 targets and will measure and publish our progress against them each year in our Sustainable Business Report.
- Measure and enable carbon capture and mitigation in agriculture
- Enhance biodiversity and soil health on 3 million hectares of rural farmland every year
- Reduce the carbon intensity of the Syngenta Seeds and Syngenta Crop Protection operations by 50% by 2030
Empowering farmers to store carbon in their land
Farmland is one of the planet's largest reservoirs of carbon and has huge potential to expand its role of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Agriculture also has the potential to reduce its current carbon footprint – roughly 12% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
On the farm, we invest in developing products that can help farmers to store carbon in the land and digital tools to measure the impact. We also train them in methods to mitigate the greenhouse gases produced by agriculture, and to measure the difference they are making. Our challenge now is to measure the impact at scale. This will support farmers to take part in the evolving carbon credits markets for agriculture.
Improving biodiversity and soil health
Soil is the foundation of life, and also of agriculture’s contribution to tackling climate change. For farmland to capture carbon, it needs to be healthy and fertile, which is why we work with farmers to improve soil health through climate-smart agriculture practices.
Biodiversity also plays an important role, sustaining the ecosystems that underpin fertile soils and pollination. Our work aims to help farmers counter the loss of wild habitats to climate change, urbanization, and agricultural intensification and expansion.
Making our own operations less carbon-intensive
Striving for carbon neutrality is not only about what happens on farms: our Syngenta Seeds and Syngenta Crop Protection business units are committed to cutting the carbon footprint of their operations, including the entire supply chain. Our target of a reduction of at least 50% by 2030 supports the goal of a well below 2 degrees scenario of the Paris Agreement. Our commitment is endorsed and validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
We will achieve this through a range of activities focusing on our manufacturing processes, energy sourcing and consumption, and logistics – both within our business and in partnership with our suppliers.
Striving for carbon neutral agriculture supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Restoring soil health on 1 million hectares
In Brazil, we are working with The Nature Conservancy and other partners on the long-term REVERTE® program to reverse the degradation of around 1 million hectares of pastureland in the Cerrado by 2025.
This involves implementing new, sustainable rotations on degraded pastures by farming cattle, soybean and corn in integrated crop-livestock systems. We are encouraging farmers to participate in a scalable business offer that will help to increase the value of their land, improve productivity and reverse soil degradation.
