Keeping an eye on the quality of life—today and tomorrow
Educating for preservation. Strengthening alliances that foster sustainability in rural areas. Producing responsibly for the sake of the future generations. This is the way we work.
Bunge is committed to the continuous improvement of environmental management on all levels of its businesses and production fields. Therefore, Bunge has adopted the following global environmental policy:
Global Environmental Policy
To conduct Bunge’s businesses so as to promote environmental quality.
To fulfill this policy, Bunge pledges to:
- Operate within the environmental legislation and other requirements applicable to its processes, products, and services.
- Foster continuous environmental improvements and sustainable development, applying principles of environmental management, performance indicators, and environmental risk assessments.
- Provide and support training in environmental management, as well as to nurture respect to the environment and responsibility in environmental performance for its collaborators.
- Measure and assess environmental performance associated with the processes undergone within its facilities, its products, and services.
- Work in a socially responsible way, seeking to provide the environmental needs of communities and encouraging the responsible use of natural resources.
- Pursue the prevention of pollution and the reduction of waste, as well as reuse and recycling in all its
processes, products, and services, whenever they are technically viable and economically justifiable.
Bunge’s policy of environmental management includes initiatives aimed at sustainable development, especially in those regions where agricultural activities constitute the core of the economic model. To honor this policy, Bunge has established, among other things, an important partnership with Conservation International (CI), a non-governmental organization that presides in more than thirty countries. CI is a benchmark in projects of environmental conservation.
Our partnership with CI aims at making economic development compatible with environmental preservation by means of valuing, together with farmers, biodiversity in the cerrado. To learn more about the partnership between Bunge and Conservation International, click here.
Learn more about environmental policies at Bunge Alimentos.
BUNGE FERTILIZANTES: SHARING INFORMATION,
ADDING KNOWLEDGE AND MULTIPLYING RESULTS.
Environmental centers promote awareness among our employees and the public, thus strengthening the bonds between the company and the community. Additionally, they foster research and disseminate techniques and knowledge regarding biodiversity conservation.
- Over a period of sixteen years, the Center for Environmental Education of Bunge Fertilizantes, in the city of Araxá, has become a national model for raising environmental awareness. Built with the participation of the company’s employees, it has become part of our regional heritage and it has grown in importance commensurate with the environmental issues themselves. This is evidenced by the approximately 65,000 people that have visited the Center.
- The premises and facilities of the Center are open and available for employees and their families, as well as for students and teachers from the public schools of the city of Araxá. They encompass a 22,000-square-meter area that includes a woodland area, an orchard, a serpentarium, experiment islands, and a greenhouse for medicinal plants.
- The Center for Environmental Education conducts numerous educational activities and has achieved an extensive list of accomplishments. It offers environmental education training for teachers, continuing education, and guided visits for students. Twice a year, in the months of January and July, the Center is turned into an ecological summer camp for the children of Bunge employees. Its schedule of activities has been enhanced with the support to environmental activities sponsored by the community through clinics and lectures held in different areas of the city of Araxá.
- The experience consolidated by the Center demonstrates that its work has enriched the community. The Center effectively contributes to the skills and behavioral development of children who attend school, according to evaluations by teachers and community leaders. It also fosters change in the understanding and attitudes of our employees by raising their awareness about environmental issues. This, in turn, has a positive effect on the management of our operations.
A RANCH WITHIN THE INDUSTRIAL UNIT.
THIS INNOVATION GOES BEYOND PRODUCTS: IT CREATES A NEW CONCEPT.
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In the city of Cubatão (SP), Bunge Fertilizantes leads another activity based on the objective of providing both its employees and community schools with an additional, permanent source of environmental research: a conservation ranch. It is formed by two lakes that occupy a 14,000-square-kilometer area, located in the surroundings of the factory. These lakes have become the habitat for fresh water birds, fish, and mammals. In the same area, there are arboretums with toucans, macaws, parrots, reptiles, and rodents.
Working within the urban space
For a greener capital of Sao Paulo state
Bunge Fertilizantes is one of the partners of the Projeto Pomar (Project Orchard), an initiative by the Sao Paulo state government. In addition to fostering environmental education generally, this project plants trees and creates gardens within a fourteen-kilometer area on the Pinheiros River banks, in the capital city of Sao Paulo. Thanks to the Projeto Pomar, native plant species have returned to the river banks, the overall area is cleaner and facilities along the project promotes well being for all public. As a result, more wildlife has been seen around the city. This project was audited by ISO 14000.
The area maintained by Bunge Fertilizantes is heavily traveled, given its location near the Cidade Jardim train station. In addition to offering a tranquil green space for people to enjoy, Projeto Pomar plays an important social role by regularly sponsoring the training of the gardeners in the area. The skills and knowledge they gain qualifies them to go on to do additional gardening work.
Producing is synonymous with preserving
Practicing sustainable development in every aspect of the production process: this is one of the commandments that guide Bunge’s corporate environmental policy.
Sustainability as a purpose
- Respecting the environment goes beyond controlling environmental impacts generated by the production process. Proper disposal of garbage, recycling, reuse of industrial waste, and creation of green areas are part of our company’s daily routine.
- Over the last two years, Bunge Fertilizantes has invested 14 million reais to install equipment and implement systems that control air and liquid effluent emissions at the units of Araxá, (MG), Cajati (SP), Cubatão (SP), Rio Grande (RS), and Uberaba (MG).
- Four units have been certified by ISO 14001, a set of international standards that establishes requirements for sustainable industrial development: Araxá, (MG), Cubatão (SP), Rio Grande (RS), and Luís Eduardo Magalhães (BA).
CHECK IT OUT, SOON: HOW BUNGE ALIMENTOS IS MANAGING TO HAVE THE ENVIRONMENT, IN ALL ACTIVITIES, WELL PRESERVED. |
