Our Targets to Be Met by 2030
What we do to help people thrive:
Support 100 million smallholder farmers
By 2030, we will be supporting 100 million smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with products, services and partnerships. We want to enable them to produce enough quality food for themselves and others. Worldwide, there are around 550 million smallholder farmers, which provide up to 80 percent of their countries’ food supply in LMICs. However, many smallholders can barely earn their own living and are vulnerable to climate change.
Approximately 97% of the world’s farmers farm on less than 10 hectares (~25 acres) of land. That’s approximately 550 million small farms across Asia, Africa, and the developing world. These farmers, many under 2 hectares produce roughly a third of the world’s food supply and in low- and middle-income countries, they produce a bit more than half of the calories consumed. It’s is no exaggeration to say that smallholder farmers play a big role in global agriculture and food security.
While farmers all over the world face challenges such as extreme weather, pests, crop disease, and uncertain markets, many smallholder farmers lack access to the solutions they need to overcome these challenges and grow enough food to support their livelihoods and the communities that depend on them.
As a global leader in agriculture, we’re uniquely positioned to help. By 2030, we will be supporting 100 million smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) each year with products, services and partnerships.
How We’re Making an Impact in Agriculture:
Working Towards A Carbon Zero Future for Agriculture
Reducing Agriculture’s Impact on the Environment
Empowering 100 Million Smallholder Farmers
Benefiting Biodiversity & Soil Health
Creating a Sustainable Product Supply
Support 100 million people in underserved communities with self-care
By 2030, we will be supporting 100 million people in economically or medically underserved communities each year with self-care. At least half the world’s population currently has no access to basic health services, including self-medication products. We want to change this through the availability of appropriate products and education.
Global health systems are under constant cost pressure. An aging population, a growing number of lifestyle-related diseases and rising costs are preventing access to health care for more and more people and leaving behind the world’s underserved communities, particularly the women and children living there. At least half the world’s population is currently unable to access basic medical services, including self-care products.
Expanding access to self-care solutions and health education can help patients prevent disease and offer healthcare to communities where self-care might be the only option. With an initial focus on women’s health and expanding access to micronutrients for pregnant women and children, Bayer will increase the availability and affordability of our trusted brands and support self-care initiatives.
Support 100 million women in LMICs with contraception
By 2030, we will be satisfying the need of 100 million women in LMICs for modern contraception each year. According to the United Nations, gender equality will be a decisive factor for the world’s future economic and social development. We want to strengthen the role of women and intensify our efforts in modern family planning.
Access to family planning empowers women and promotes gender equality, which, in turn, results in increased economic and social development, and healthier societies overall. According to the UN, however, over 200 million women of reproductive age in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) who want to avoid pregnancy don't use safe and effective family planning methods.
We believe that all women should have access to voluntary family planning no matter their economic status, helping improve their health, economic opportunities and progress towards gender equality.
With this goal in mind, we are expanding our offering of long-acting products that are in especially high demand in international development projects, such as the Jadelle™ implant and the Mirena™ coil. As is currently the case for oral contraceptives and contraceptive injections, these products will be offered to our partners (such as the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA) at preferential prices. Further collaborations are planned to promote voluntary family planning programs. We pledge support for participating partners irrespective of the products used.
Read more about the topic "Improving Livelihoods Through Family Planning"
We Are Also Aiming to …
… increase the availability and affordability of our pharmaceutical products in LMICs. We will pursue programs for fair pricing and affordability for patients.
.… continue our cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) to fight tropical diseases such as African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease, which typically hit the lowest levels of the income pyramid hardest.
We have been actively combating tropical diseases for many years already. For example, we provide two of our active ingredients against African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease, which is prevalent in Latin America, free of charge to the WHO. We also support programs for the control of diseases such as malaria, dengue and the Zika virus which are transmitted by disease vectors such as mosquitoes.
Read more about the topic "Fighting Neglected Tropical Diseases"
... establish sustainable production and the transition to circular options in our Consumer Health Division to reduce, recycle, reuse and replace.
... support 50 million people in underserved communities annually by 2030 with access to essential vitamins and minerals, from nutritious food to safety net supplementation.
Read more about the "Nutrient Gap Initiative"
We collaborate with partners to increase impact
Now, more than ever before, progress cannot be achieved without partnerships. As such, we are actively collaborating with NGOs, governments, and other public and private organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Access Accelerated and the Antimicrobial Resistance Action Fund, to extend our reach and impact. Going forward, we will look to broaden and deepen partnerships with like-minded organizations as we pursue our mission.
We Are Reducing Our Ecological Footprint
Without suitable countermeasures, global temperatures will rise by well over 2 degrees Celsius. This will threaten our planet’s ecosystems, jeopardize the health of people, animals and plants, and place the food supply for a growing world population at risk. Bayer is taking broad climate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within our company and along our entire value chain in accordance with the Paris Agreement. At the same time, we are working on drastically reducing the environmental impact of agriculture.
Bayer is committed to mitigating climate change and limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in line with the Paris Agreement. We have set ourselves a science-based target to decarbonize and a net zero target, including our supply chain, for 2050. We are looking to achieve this with an absolute reduction of 42 percent in our emissions (scope 1 and 2) by 2030. We have included making our own sites climate-neutral in our Group targets to be met by 2030. To achieve this, we are about to implement a number of measures focusing on energy efficiency, energy sources, offsetting and the value chain. Between 2020 and 2030, we will be investing EUR 500 million to improve energy efficiency in our own plants.
By 2030, the remaining emissions will be fully offset by purchasing certificates from verified climate protection projects, especially in the areas of forest conservation and agriculture. When selecting projects, we pay particular attention to ensuring they enable long-term CO2 capture (permanence) and would not take place without the sale of certificates (additionality). Furthermore, we have introduced additional in-house quality requirements, such as certifying projects according to internationally recognized standards.
Bayer products and services are also linked to emissions that are generated before and after the company’s activities, for instance in the value chain (scope 3 emissions). In this case, SBTi has confirmed that Bayer is helping to limit global warming to well below 2 °C. In the future, we aim to reduce our Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2029 (compared to the base year 2019). In 2024, the target for reducing Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions has been increased and validated by SBTi. This reduction applies to an adjusted number of relevant Scope 3 categories, including both upstream and downstream value chains, thus extending beyond the previous five categories. Our target boundary will be 68% of our overall Scope 3 emissions. Given the very large number of suppliers, the 25 percent reduction in emissions attributed to the supply chain and/or customers poses a similar challenge to the 42 percent reduction for in-house emissions.