development of corporate responsibility
Our work for responsibility is guided by ambitious goals: a carbon-neutral food chain, clean and safe products, and the general well-being of people. To achieve these goals, we are developing and enhancing our entire value chain through three priorities: the Planet, Food and People.
Atria responds to changes in the operating environment by updating its responsibility programme
The COVID-19-pandemic continued to affect out operations in 2021. Atria’s coronavirus guidelines were constantly updated as the situation evolved. The objectives were to prevent the spread of the disease, protect personnel from the virus and to keep our production chain operational throughout. These objectives were achieved very well. Our security of supply remained good, and we were able to meet consumer demand and customer needs.
During the year, we updated our responsibility program for 2022–2025. The goal of the new responsibility programme is to reduce the environmental impact and carbon emissions of the entire value chain in cooperation with supply chain partners. Due to climate change, our most important goal is to achieve a carbon neutral food chain.
We also committed to the Science Based Targets climate initiative (SBTi). It helps us to set targets for development measures that are in line with the Paris Climate Agreement’s target of limiting the global average temperature increase to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
We have a long-standing commitment to transparency and traceability in our production chain, as well as to farm-specific carbon footprints. In early 2021, we introduced carbon footprint labelling on consumer packaging for our chicken products and, later in the year, also for pork products.
Merja Leino, EVP, Sustainability
Planet
In 2021, the most important measures to curb climate change were increasing both energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources. We reduced our CO2 emissions and met our reduction targets. We launched major projects, such as the expansion of a solar park and the construction of a wind farm, to increase renewable energy sources. Our work for carbon foot printing came more visible to consumers, as we introduced carbon footprint labelling on all our chicken products and some pork products. In addition, we significantly reduced the amount of packaging plastic and investigated new ecological packaging materials.
Products
During the year, we continued to develop a sustainable, safe, and transparent food chain. Together with our producers, we continued our work to increase antibiotic-free products and to improve animal welfare. We began to build a comprehensive biosafety strategy to cover our whole production chain. The biosafety strategy, based on One Health approach, covers the well-being of people, animals and the environment as well as product safety. In addition, we promoted sustainable farming methods and practices and participated in research that promotes animal welfare and health.
People
Our work to reduce and prevent accidents brought results in all business areas. From 2017 to 2021, the accident frequency rate in the Group has decreased by more than 65%. During the year, we invested in strengthening and improving the competence of our personnel through training and by developing our management practices. The work towards tasty, healthy, and safe food was reflected in our product range and communication. We launched about 230 new products. We expanded e.g., the selection of Heart Label products in Finland and Keyhole label products in Sweden and Denmark.
