On April 22, we joined our employees, our customers and our communities in celebrating Earth Day.
Our vision is to be the most sustainable sugar company, so we think of every day as Earth Day. Through teamwork, we do our part daily for a better planet as we work toward our environmental goals, such as becoming carbon neutral globally by 2040 and zero waste to landfill by 2030.
Each April, we celebrate Earth Day by joining hands with our neighbors to make our communities greener, cleaner and more sustainable through neighborhood cleanups, electronic waste recycling drives, environmental education efforts and other sustainability initiatives. This year, hundreds of employees around the globe volunteered their time to support these activities.
Here are some of the highlights:
• Our South Florida employees marked Earth Day with our community at a tree planting in collaboration with Community Greening, a nonprofit that beautifies public parks, schoolyards, residential yards and urban orchards throughout Palm Beach County. More than 30 employees joined us to plant native trees at Dreher Park in West Palm Beach, a few blocks from our corporate headquarters.
• Our colleagues in Belize joined staff and students of Mopan Technical High School for a day-long celebration that included discussions about environmental protection, social equity and best practices associated with the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). We were pleased to donate 10 signs to serve as reminders to students to continue protecting the environment through small, everyday practices. In addition, we donated fruit and decorative trees, which we helped plant in the school’s agricultural and recreational areas. Our employees also teamed up with a local organization, Eco Hearts, to conduct a community cleanup in Orange Walk, and we donated black soil for a tree planting at the Orange Walk Central Park.
• Employees at our Chalmette Refinery in Louisiana partnered with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana to bag 11 tons of recycled oyster shells. The shells will become part of a living shoreline (oyster reefs) that will help protect wetlands and reduce shoreline erosion. Employees also participated in “Love the Boot Week,” Louisiana's largest statewide litter removal and beautification effort.
• Employees at our Ingenio San Nicolás Sugar Mill and Refinery in Veracruz, Mexico held Earth Day activities in collaboration with a nearby community clinic. After giving a presentation about Earth Day and recycling, employees helped clean up green space surrounding the clinic. We were happy to donate waste containers to help keep the site clean, as well as paint, brushes and rollers, which were used to paint the building’s exterior. We also donated fruit trees, which we planted outside of the clinic. Employees at our Fortín facility in Veracruz, Mexico, celebrated Earth Day by planting trees in our community.
• A team of volunteers from our Thames Refinery and Plaistow Plant in London joined up with the Royal Docks Learning & Activity Centre to celebrate Earth Day. Our employees worked hard to clear rubbish and overgrown hedging from a previously derelict space near the Thames Refinery, with the aim of transforming it into a beautiful green space for the community to enjoy. More than 10 bags of rubbish were collected, and overgrown hedging was trimmed and leaves cleared. The hedge trimmings and leaves will be shredded to be used in compost in RDLAC’s garden at their community center and in other local community garden spaces.
We’re grateful to all of our employees who volunteered their time to help us support our communities and clean up our neighborhoods on Earth Day, and who work each day to help us become even more sustainable.
Learn more about our Sustainability program here.
