CHICAGO – Being a good corporate citizen is an important goal ConAgra Foods, Inc. is striving toward. The company is releasing its 2016 Corporate Citizenship Report online to share its progress toward various environmental, social and governance initiatives.
“Being a good corporate citizen is good business and I’m incredibly proud of the progress we are making on the issues most material to the food industry, our business and our stakeholders,” said Sean Connolly, president and CEO of ConAgra Foods. “In the midst of a very transformative year, our citizenship goals have remained a priority for ConAgra’s leadership and employees alike.”
The Citizenship Report covers nearly all of ConAgra’s company-owned facilities, as well as some of its facilities that are owned through joint ventures. Data in the report reflects the company’s fiscal year 2016, ended May 31.
A letter from Connolly in the report’s introduction, reads: “In FY16, our citizenship approach continues to be guided by our recently completed materiality assessment which brought to light those issues most material to the food industry, our business and our stakeholders. The assessment provides a 360-degree view on the relative priority of environmental, social and governance issues. Based on the findings from our materiality assessment, we built our citizenship efforts around three main focus areas: Better Planet, Good Food and Stronger Communities.”
Highlights from the report include:
- Under the category of Better Planet: Efforts to reduce environmental impact, including employee-led projects that eliminated 16 tons of waste, optimized and improved packaging while using 2.3 million lbs. less material, conserved more than 365 gallons of water and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 15,300 metric tons. In addition to being better for the environment, these programs also resulted in more than $8.7 million in savings for the company.
- Under the category of Stronger Communities: Employee involvement in charitable activities, including ConAgra’s annual month of service. Activities throughout May 2016 brought together more than 2,100 employees who volunteered more than 5,800 hours across 10 states to pack 620,000 meals for those suffering from food insecurity.
- External recognition of ConAgra Foods’ ongoing corporate responsibility commitment, including its selection for the sixth consecutive year on the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index.
