Cover Page of the Report

Fonterra released its first Sustainability Report to shares its environmental, social and economic performance. The report is compiled to global best practice using the Group Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework and has also been independently assured. Around one third of New Zealand’s Top 100 companies use a framework like GRI but a smaller number than that have it independently assured. The result is an objective view of how Fonterra operates.

Sustainability is core to Fonterra’s strategy and over the last year they have extended their strategic planning horizons considering longer-term global trends and prioritising the areas where they can contribute to the communities.

The report shows their success till now, and areas where they can do better, set out against their commitments and targets. Some findings include:

• New Zealand has among the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per litre of milk collected in the world (0.85 per kgCO2/kgFPCM).
• 95% of supplying farms in New Zealand are participating in nutrient management reporting and benchmarking.
• 98.4% of waterways on supplying farms in New Zealand are fenced to keep cows out of waterways.
• Fonterra’s global Food and Nutrition Guidelines were endorsed by the New Zealand Nutrition Foundation.
• More than 140,000 Kiwi kids get a free 200ml serving of milk each school day. One university study published in 2017 showed significantly improved bone health in children who were part of the Milk for Schools programme compared to students who were not.

The link to their full report is here.