Sustainable Dairy at Kerry Dairy Irelan

Water

Water plays a crucial role in sustaining our business operations. At Kerry, we recognise the importance of freshwater to our operations, raw material production, and, in some instances, the utilisation of our products. We engage in the withdrawal, utilisation, and discharge of water across all our sites. As a shared resource, we acknowledge the importance of responsible water management and are committed to reducing our water withdrawal intensity, safeguarding water sources, and ensuring equitable access for other stakeholders. Across our manufacturing operations we are targeting a 15% reduction in water withdrawal intensity by the end of 2025, versus our 2017 base year. In addition to making efforts to achieve our external target, we also work to ensure that we protect the water quality in the locations where we operate.

Waste

Our Beyond the Horizon strategy aims to find new, innovative ways to prevent or reduce the generation of waste, and to recover surplus materials for re-use. It comprises two parts: reducing waste within our own operations and investing in partnerships that help us to recycle and reuse; and on the other hand, looking at our value chain, reusing and upcycling ingredients, as well as reducing packaging and food waste in partnership with our customers.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity across all of our manufacturing facilities is important to us, supporting and protecting the environments we operate in underpins all activities at our offices and sites including water usage, waste treatment and nurturing the local flora. Our employees have embarked on a number of onsite biodiversity activities in grass areas of our manufacturing facilities where any health and safety risk to food production has been eliminated. In these areas, we have established bug hotels, beehives and nesting platforms to encourage breeding and pollinator activity. We have also encouraged natural circularity by allowing large areas of grassland at our sites to grow wild with only maintenance cutting completed annually to continue to allow the area’s flourish.

Employee wellbeing, Safety & Community

Every day, we bring unwavering dedication to enhancing our culture of safety and our safety performance. Safety First, Quality Always is our guiding principle and our commitment of never compromising on the safety of our people, or the quality and safety of our products. It has long become a part of our DNA and has become a proactive mindset in all of our operations.

By fostering strong relationships with the communities in which we operate, we can work together to promote positive outcomes for our business, society and the environment. Every Kerry site donates to local charities, teams, clubs and societies annually.

Standards, Memberships & Partnerships

Kerry Dairy Ireland is a member of a series of multi-stakeholder platforms in key categories including:

• Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)
• Palm Oil Collaboration Group (POCG)
• Sustainable Dairy Partnership (SDP)
• Origin Green

These platforms bring together organisations like Kerry Dairy Ireland, with our peers, suppliers, and customers, to collaborate on developing and implementing solutions for sustainable sourcing requirements. Through these partnerships, we engage in initiatives aimed at protecting and restoring forests both locally and globally. By leveraging our collective resources, influence, and expertise, we accelerate the transition towards deforestation-free supply chains.