2023 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 focused improvement efforts regarding our own operational footprint, we are committed to be part of the global solution to reduce the overall impact on the environment through our focused improvement efforts that minimize energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation, and water consumption at our manufacturing and laboratory facilities. Our comprehensive system to capture all environmental aspects of our operations has allowed us to closely monitor changes and provide a foundation for us to establish and measure progress on future aggressive goals for our organization. Importantly, we have obtained limited assurance for several environmental and safety indicators from an independent third party, as further detailed in our 2023 Corporate Sustainability Report. Highlights are presented below,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Our greenhouse gas emission inventory includes both Scope 1 (from direct combustion and refrigerants) as well as Scope 2 (from indirect sources such as electricity and purchased cooling water and steam). Both emissions were down in 2022 versus 2021. Most of the reduction in Scope 1 was due to focus and repairs of an equipment failure in 2021 which resulted in larger than normal refrigerant releases that year. The majority of the Scope 2 reduction observed in 2022 was attributed to a 25% reduction in steam usage at our largest operating facility. These improvements were implemented through a focused project to identify and address energy usage and efficiencies across the site. Similar efforts are being planned and conducted at our other sites. 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. GHG Emission Intensity is calculated using ton of finished product ready for sale as managed in American Vanguard’s inventory management software and was down in 2022 versus 2021.
See Performance Table for Supporting Data
Energy
The energy we consume for our production, formulating, and laboratories is comprised of: electricity; purchased steam and cooling water; and natural gas and other fuels (such as diesel, gasoline, and propane). With the addition of Agrinos, which produces soil health products, to the American Vanguard portfolio in October 2020, the amount of energy consumed within our operational footprint overall increased slightly in 2021 and remained relatively constant in 2022. When normalized for total annual production, however, the intensity in 2021 (gigajoules/MT product) was slightly lower than 2020 and remained relatively unchanged in 2022. Energy Intensity is calculated using ton of finished product ready for sale as managed in American Vanguard’s inventory management software.
See Performance Table for Supporting Data
Water Withdrawal
We conducted a thorough water risk assessment of all manufacturing and laboratory sites in 2022 using the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas tool. Two areas were identified as high risk, and we will prioritize these locations as focus areas for American Vanguard. While some of these data are 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 and consumption.
See Performance Table for Supporting Data
Waste
This graph depicts a summary of our total waste accounting classified as Hazardous and Non-hazardous along with the resulting Waste Intensity. We are capturing these data across all of our manufacturing and laboratory operations, and, as shown here, have experienced a decrease in total waste generated and in waste intensity in 2022 as compared to 2021.
See Performance Table for Supporting Data
