Environment
Our Environmental Impact
As a global agrochemical company, we strive to manage our environmental impact and go beyond compliance both in our current activities and when planning future operations. We take a comprehensive approach to monitoring our environmental impact and mitigating risks, in every stage of our product life cycle, starting from raw material supplies, to production, transportation, application, and all the way to end-of-life management. This approach enables us to continuously improve our normalized environmental performance indicators over the long term.
To put our commitment into practice, we have established and continuously maintain an effective environmental management system for most of our production processes, built in accordance with the International Standard ISO 14001.
Our Environment, Health and Safety Policy adopts a sustainable approach to protecting both our People’s health and safety, and the environment by promoting renewable energy, recycling, and waste reduction. We strongly maintain our commitment to the nearby community and foster a corporate culture of individual responsibility at all our sites.
Highlights
Decrease in GHG emissions per tonne production from averaged values 2011- 2019
Decrease in discharged organic matter in effluents per tonne production from averaged values 2011-2019
Reduction in water consumption per tonne production from averaged values 2011-2019
Advancing Beyond Compliance
Despite our growing production volumes, we are committed to outperforming the regulatory requirements and dramatically limiting our energy, water, and hazardous waste footprint. We’ve launched a variety of projects that will steadily improve our environmental performance in absolute terms over the coming years.
Looking Ahead - Our 2024 environmental goals:
- 10% reduction in fossil fuel consumption in absolute terms and/or per tonne production from 2019 values
- 15% reduction in hazardous waste disposed to landfill or incineration in absolute terms and/or per tonne production from 2019 values
- 10% reduction in water consumption in absolute terms and/or per tonne production from 2019 values
Investing in a Greener Future
In 2020, we have increased our investment in preventing or mitigating environmental risks and reducing the potential environmental effects of our activities. Our facilities are managed according to stringent European directives or analogous local regulations.
Investing in a Greener Future
| 2019 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|
| Investment in facilities (million USD) | 9 | 19 |
| Current costs (million USD) | 48 | 51 |
Sustainable Operations
- We operate five (5) major synthesis sites and twelve (12) formulation and packing sites.
- In 2020, a new Chinese subsidiary, Jiangsu Huifeng Bio Agriculture Co., Ltd, has joined ADAMA. Operation includes both synthesis and formulations.
- During 2020, no fines or sanctions were levied against ADAMA global production sites.
- Whenever significant changes or new operations are planned, we first carry out a survey to identify potential environmental risks.
- We strive to improve our production processes by integrating advanced technological and environmental solutions at all our sites.
LUDAN Environmental Technologies, a global leader in waste-to-energy and industrial pollution treatment, has reviewed and validated ADAMA’s global operations during the beginning of 2020.
The following technologies/systems were reviewed for Adama’s relevant facilities:
| Pillars | Technological and organizational solutions |
|---|---|
| Water and wastewater |
|
| Energy use |
|
| Air pollutants and odor nuisance |
|
| Hazardous waste |
|
| Noise nuisance |
|
| Accident prevention |
|
Prioritizing Community Needs
We actively work to engage the communities living near our operation sites to jointly create projects that reduce potential disturbances. In our production plants, we host regular community dialogues to listen to and address public concerns.
For example, in response to requests made by the neighboring community at the ADAMA Agan site, we reduced noise levels and captured residual odors. We also send a biannual operational update to community leaders, as well as run a verified monitoring station that transmits real-time information about chemical emissions, so our stakeholders can be certain that we are well below admissible levels.
Sustainability Assessments
In 2020, ADAMA score in the sustainability assessment by ECOVADIS improved significantly from the 34th percentile on 2018 to 68th on 2020. EcoVadis is an international organization that provides evidence-based sustainability assessments for companies within global supply chains. The elevated score is attributed to Environment, Labor and Human rights and Ethics. Further improvements include sustainable procurements topics and environmental documentation including global procedures.
Since 2006, ADAMA discloses data to the local Israeli sustainability ranking organization, Maala. ADAMA was granted a platinum medal for our 2018 & 2019 assessment, in which we received an environmental score of 8 out of 10.
Looking Ahead
In 2020, we developed a digital reporting platform will be implemented to record the findings and help to follow up on improvements on a frequent basis.
ADAMA is going to expand its disclosing practice and submit the 2021 CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) questionnaire. The information comprises of carbon footprint performance, policies, targets and governance.
ADAMA intend to join the Together for Sustainability Initiative (TfS) of global chemical companies which aims to deliver the de facto global standard for environmental, social, and governance performance of chemical supply chains.
Learning and Improvements
During 2020, ADAMA HSE and Sustainability newsletter was launched and provide global information on regulation, HSE incidents, and sustainability activities. The goal is to expose our HSE teams to upcoming regulations, implement corrective actions from external HSE incidents, and to learn about sustainability activities within our industry.
We treat all accidents with the highest care and invest in training and a culture of safety so that, even though we cannot guarantee a zero-incident rate, we can learn from mistakes to prevent future occurrences.
In 2020, we experienced four major incidents which were immediately contained and treated.
Case Study: Odor nuisance at Londrina nearby community (2020)
Poor controlled of DMA (Dimethylacetamide) emissions from a production facility caused odor nuisance at nearby community. We identified the root cause of the emissions and modified the waste gas system to decrease sharply emissions and nuisance.
Case Study: Spill of treated effluents from an underground pipe at Agan site (2020)
We stopped effluent flow in the pipe, pump excess of effluents to a tanker back to the wastewater treatment plant, identified the breakdown point and fix the broken pipe within few hours. An electrical check to detect leaks along the pipe was embedded into the routine maintenance
GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards
GRI 103, GRI 102-9, GRI 102-44, GRI 307-1, GRI 413-1, GRI 413-2
Sustainable Development Goals
With our renewable and energy efficiency projects, wastewater treatment and recycling activities, and soil and groundwater reclamation, as well as our green revamping of our Chinese facilities, we aim to contribute to the advancement of UN Sustainable Development Goals 6, 7, 9, and 12, focusing on the following subtargets:
6.3By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally.
7.2By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
9.4By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities.
12.4By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment.
12.5 By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
12.7 Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities.
12.A Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production.