US – American multinational snack and food company, Hershey is targeting unsustainable plastics in its recently launched 10-year sustainability plan.
Hershey said it is aiming for 100% of its plastic packaging to be recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2030.
Apart from making its packaging more sustainable, the maker of KitKat chocolates has also pledged to reduce its packaging weight by 25 million by 2030.
Weight has a significant contribution to the company’s overall carbon footprint and reducing it significantly would help to reduce Hershey’s overall carbon footprint.
When it comes to carbon emissions, the company has new science-based targets to reduce its emissions in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.
Building on its 2019 commitment to the Science-Based Targets initiative, Hershey has a goal to reduce its absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by more than 50%.
It also has plans to reduce its absolute Scope 3 emissions by 25% by 2030, compared to a 2018 baseline.
As part of its renewable energy investment, the company has signed two power purchase agreements (PPAs) that will enable the construction of two new utility-scale solar farms.
Combined with additional energy efficiency projects, these efforts are expected to reduce Hershey’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40% by 2024.
As part of land-use, Hershey has committed to end deforestation across its supply chain by 2030 with a new company-wide deforestation policy.
This applies to all suppliers across its raw material supply chains and it plans to prioritise commodities that present the greatest risk such as cocoa, palm oil, pulp, paper, and soy.
Hershey says it will take action regarding any suppler that is not in compliance with the policy, including potential suspension or removal from its supply chain.
“These environmental commitments are critical to the long-term sustainability of our business,” said Jeff King, senior director of global sustainability and social impact, The Hershey Company.
“The work is interconnected across our business and requires us to bring together all efforts across the company, from manufacturing, energy buying and packaging to make it work seamlessly to reach our goals.”
The new sustainability efforts by Hershey come on the heels of a stand-off between the US company and the governments of Ghana and Ivory Coast over its sustainability programs.
The two countries accused Hershey of refusing to pay the premium amount tagged on cocoa for the purpose of combating farmers poverty and subsequently barred the maker of kitkat from conducting any sustainability schemes in their region.
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