“ I THINK THE MOST SPECTACULAR STEPS FORWARD WERE OUR FIRST PILOTS IN THE AREA OF CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE ”
KLAUS KUNZ HEAD OF SUSTAINABILITY , BAYER
• To reduce the environmental impact of crop protection by 30 % by 2030 by developing new technologies , e . g . helping farmers to scale down crop protection product uses and enabling a more precise application .
• To reduce field greenhouse gas emissions from the most emitting crops systems in the regions Bayer serves by 30 %.
• And to empower 100m smallholder farmers by providing greater access to sustainable agricultural solutions .
Reaching these goals will not solve the problem , he admits , and it ' s not yet clear exactly how they ' ll be met , but he says that setting high standards is an essential step on the road to transformative change . “ The strategy shift was a clear statement , and a clear commitment to place sustainability at the core of our business in the future . I have seen massive changes in recent years and I ' m really happy to have had the opportunity to contribute to those changes .”
At Bayer , sustainability now has taken centre stage , delinked perhaps from corporate affairs and PR motivations . Now it is linked to impact , he says : “ If you want sustainability to create an impact , you have to embed it in the business . There ' s no other way to do it . We and our competitors used to say our driver was to feed the world . Nothing wrong with helping farmers to improve their yield , but we have a lot of customers in the Americas and Europe among large-scale farmers , but if you say you want to make a contribution to feed the world , you need to focus also on smaller growers in low- and middle-income countries .” Part of the strategic shift was to acknowledge that food security is a huge concern in much of the world , and that to make an impact here and be more inclusive of smallholders would involve huge investment : hence the commitment to improve the lot of 100m of these small farmers . Bayer already has a strong presence in that market but it is far from the aspired target .
32 January 2022