Silver Fern Farms is committed to making sustainability our way of doing business. Each year our company works hard to make sure we are closer to meeting our sustainable goals, while continuing to provide premium quality grass-fed red meat to our customers responsibly and safely.

In 2019, Silver Fern Farms achieved significant progress in developing and growing our sustainability strategy, paving the way for greater environmental initiatives in the coming years. This was the result of two major successes.

Last September our company attained Toitū Envirocare CarbonReduce verification of our processing carbon footprint for the 2018 calendar year.

Toitū Envirocare is a subsidiary of Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, a Government-owned Crown Research Institute that provides a system of science-based environmental programs to help businesses be more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint. The organization gives businesses the tools they need to measure their progress, assigning a series of certifications that meet sustainable standards requirements and ensure consistency, accountability, transparency, and best practice management.

While Toitū Envirocare has been assisting hundreds of diverse companies at home and around the world, Silver Fern Farms is the first New Zealand red-meat processing and marketing company to have our carbon footprint verified by the organization and publicly report our emissions.

By gaining CarbonReduce certification, which meets the globally recognized ISO 14064-1 standards, we were able to show our commitment to measuring, reporting, and reducing emissions. This has already had a flow on effect into the 2019 year where we have been able to demonstrate a verified reduction in our Greenhouse Gas emissions, dropping by 8%. That’s equivalent to the amount of carbon sequestered by around 15,000 acres of trees in one year.

In November 2019, we achieved our second environmental win when our company became a member of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB).

GRSB is an organization of producers, producer associations, retail companies, civil societies, commerce and processing sectors and national and regional roundtables whose mission is “to advance, support, and communicate continuous improvement in sustainability of the global beef value chain through leadership, science, and multi-stakeholder engagement and collaboration". Their goal is to supports sustainable, socially responsible, and economically viable raising and production practices for beef.

By becoming a member, Silver Fern Farms is not only able to demonstrate our commitment to sustainable red meat production, but also engage with industry leaders and contribute to the global sustainable beef conversation.