2022 Corporate Sustainability Update: Environment
American Vanguard is committed to providing solutions for growers around the world to sustainably support the needs of the growing global population – which is expected to increase by 25% over the next 30 years. Through our product offerings and solutions – as well as our focused improvement efforts regarding our own operational footprint – we are committed to be a part of the global solution to reduce the overall impact on the environment while growing our business to support these growers and the growing needs of the global population.
Emission factors as well as energy content conversions that we have set as our foundation are based on the EPA Center for Corporate Climate Leadership Emission Factors for Greenhouse Gas Inventories (last modified April 1, 2022), and in accordance with the GRI protocol and SASB guidance for the Chemical Industry. In connection to our recent AVD Climate Change Commitment, previous operations that may not have been included in all aspects of our footprint reporting are now in scope. One of our focused efforts in 2021 has been to establish systems to allow monthly capture of all environmental aspects of our operations and apply these conversion factors to allow us to closely monitor changes. This reporting system is set up to support our anticipated external assurance of the data to be reported in the coming year. Additionally, this will provide a solid foundation for us to establish and measure progress on future aggressive goals for our organization. Local Sustainability Teams will drive projects to meet these goals and will be overseen by our Corporate Sustainability Steering Team which reports to the Board of Directors ESG Liaison.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Our greenhouse gas emission inventory includes both Scope 1 (from direct combustion) as well as Scope 2 (from indirect sources such as electricity and purchased cooling water and steam). We are aware of our impact and ability to affect Scope 3 (from upstream and downstream sources as well as employee travel) on our carbon footprint and are in the process of assessing means to capture and quantify these impacts.
With the addition of Agrinos, which produces soil health products, to the American Vanguard portfolio in October 2020, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted within our operational footprint overall has increased slightly. When normalized for total annual production, however, the intensity in 2021 (MT CO2e/MT product) was slightly lower than in 2020.
See Performance Table for Supporting Data
Energy
The GHG emissions as seen on the first graph are the direct result of energy usage. The energy we consume for our production, formulating, and laboratories is comprised of: electricity; purchased steam and cooling water; natural gas and other fuels (such as diesel, gasoline, and propane). As was the case with GHG emissions, while total energy consumption increased in 2021 versus 2020, the energy intensity was slightly lower in 2021.
See Performance Table for Supporting Data
Water Withdrawal
Understanding that some of our footprint may be located in water-stressed areas, we will commit to conduct a thorough water risk assessment. Roughly half of the water withdrawn for our operations is from industrial water supplies and the other half is from groundwater. While some of this data is currently estimated, efforts are underway to install meters where possible to provide the usage detail for identifying and prioritizing specific opportunities for future reductions in overall water withdrawal. The increase in volume withdrawn and intensity is largely due to the acquisition of a soil health plant in October, 2020.
See Performance Table for Supporting Data
Waste
In this graph is a summary of our total waste accounting as classified as Hazardous and Non-hazardous along with the resulting waste intensity. We are now capturing these data across our manufacturing and research operations. As shown here, over the past 5 years, we have experienced a decrease in waste intensity.
See Performance Table for Supporting Data
