Kellogg & Energy Conservation

Conserving natural resources across our supply chain

The challenges created by climate change touch everyone, but especially the farmers who grow crops for our foods and people who face food insecurity. Climate change threatens to reduce food productivity at the same time our world’s population is growing. That’s why Kellogg is working on multiple fronts to address the risks climate change poses.

In 2019, we reached an important milestone – we achieved a 20.7 % normalized GHG reduction in our manufacturing sites against our 2015 baseline. That is above our 15% target for 2020, effectively reaching our target one year ahead of schedule.

We’ve long prioritized protecting our natural resources. In 2015, Kellogg was one of the first companies to set an approved science-based target to help limit the earth’s temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius or less. More recently, we’ve joined the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure and become a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact’s “Uniting Business and Governments to Recover Better” initiative calling on companies to align their COVID-19 economic aid and recovery efforts with the latest climate science. These efforts are an important part of our Kellogg’s® Better Days commitment to create Better Days for 3 billion people by the end of 2030.

One of the ways we are addressing climate change is by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in our operations and all along our supply chain.

“By harnessing power from renewable resources like the wind, sun and geothermal heat, we are reducing our reliance on limited energy sources like coal, oil and gas,” said Amy Senter, chief sustainability officer. “Already, 27.9% of the electricity used in our food production facilities comes from renewable resources. We’re especially proud of this progress since we didn’t use any renewable power when we set our target in 2015.”

We know renewable energy is the future, which is why we’ve committed to using 100% renewable electricity by 2050. Working in partnership with the nearly 200 companies who have joined RE100, we’re increasing global demand for ‒ and in turn supply of ‒ renewable energy. For example, since 2015:

Across our Western European & Australian operations, 100% of the electricity we use is renewable.
Our facility in Taloja, India was our first manufacturing site to install solar panels, which are already delivering 10% of the operations’ power needs.
Our Enstek, Malaysia facility completed an on-site solar installation in 2019. We are also proceeding with plans for solar installations in our facilities in Sri City, India; Rayong, Thailand; and Valls, Spain.
In North America, we’re purchasing renewable electricity in multiple facilities (Grand Rapids and Wyoming Michigan; San Jose, California, and Blue Anchor, New Jersey), as well as in our offices in Elmhurst and Minooka, Illinois, and Lewisville, Texas. Our Kashi office in Solana Beach, California also has on-site solar panels to support their energy use. Additionally, we’re exploring renewable electricity options such as Virtual Power Purchase Agreements to increase our use of renewable electricity.

We’re also reducing the energy we use by investing in infrastructure, training and system enhancements. For example:

In Botany, Australia, we introduced smart technology – including artificial intelligence – to best manage natural resources.
In the U.S., we had the first-ever installation of a R-514A ultra-low-global warming potential (ULGWP) chiller in our Cincinnati, Ohio facility. We installed three more units in our global headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan. We’ve since established a global policy that all new refrigeration equipment we purchase must use ULGWP or natural refrigerants.
Pringles® facilities in Kutno, Poland and Jackson, Tennessee reduced their energy use by replacing more than 9,000 lights with newer LED technology and are operating more efficiently due to increased production.

We’re currently working toward our 2020 Global Sustainability Commitments to reduce energy use and manufacturing greenhouse gas emissions by 15%1 and to expand the use of low-carbon energy in our plants by 50%2. To date, we have reduced our overall energy use and GHG emissions per tonne of food produced by 11.8% and 20.7%, respectively and achieved our low-carbon energy goal.

In 2019, we introduced our more ambitious Kellogg’s® Better Days commitments to achieve a 45% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and a 15% reduction in Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 20302. These goals put us firmly our 2050 glide path to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions in our operations (manufacturing, offices, warehouses and fleet) by 65% and Scope 3 emissions by 50%. By the end of 2019 we have already achieved a 28.6% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions against our 2015 baseline. The avoided emissions since 2015 are the equivalent of taking nearly 2.5 billion vehicle miles off the road1. Regarding our Scope 3 efforts, we have engaged suppliers that represent 76% of our global spend to annually report their emissions through the global CDP Supply Chain environmental disclosure system.

We’ll share more details on our progress in our 2020 Corporate Responsibility Report. Until then, whenever you enjoy one of our delicious foods, remember that it could well have been renewable energy from the wind or sun that toasted the corn for your Kellogg’s Corn Flakes®, puffed the rice for your Kellogg’s® Rice Bubbles®, or baked the wheat for your Kellogg’s® Frosted Min-Wheats®. We’re well on our way to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by using 100% renewable energy.