PLANET

• ensure our animals are cared for at all times
• plan for the impacts of climate change
• manage sustainable water, agricultural and environmental practices
• strive for zero harm to our people, and
• take steps to ensure ethical procurement of products and services in our supply chain.

As one of the largest integrated protein producers across Australia and New Zealand, we embrace our responsibility to facilitate best practice in our business to ensure we do the right things by our people and our planet.

• From farm to fork, chicken meat has significantly lower resource use and environmental impact compared with beef, pork and lamb.
• Climate change assessment led to the commissioning of an on‑site bore water treatment plant at Te Aroha, New Zealand to combat seasonal drought conditions.
• We are improving our data collection to enable us to track and measure our future performance in managing energy and water use.

Revegetation projects were initiated this year in partnership with the local councils at Somerville, Victoria and Bolivar, South Australia, to help improve the health of the local waterways.

The on‑site Advanced Water Treatment Plants (AWTPS) at Murarrie and Somerville continue to fulfil up to 70 per cent of the sites’ potable water needs.

We have welcomed more bird wildlife to the wetland areas at our Murarrie primary processing plant, following remediation works on the site’s five ponds. These works have improved the efficiency of the AWTP and water flow into the ponds, which provide a valuable sanctuary for the local wildlife, especially during times of water stress in the area.

In a world‑first, we are also partnering with the University of Queensland’s Advanced Water Management Centre to remove organic contaminants from our Murarrie AWTP to produce protein‑rich biomass to replace fishmeal to benefit the aquaculture industry. We are continually looking at ways to optimise our recycling and treatment facilities on our site and reduce the transfer of treated wastewater, which ultimately discharges into the Brisbane River.

In New Zealand, we discharge treated wastewater from our Te Aroha operation into a local stream, which converges into the Piako River, before ultimately discharging into the Firth of Thames. The Firth of Thames is one of the six protected sites of important biodiversity in New Zealand under the Ramsar Convention. Earlier this year, there was an extremely rare sighting of a pod of 60 bottlenose dolphins swimming up the Piako River from the Firth of Thames. The Department of Conservation stated that this is an indication of the healthy ecosystem in the waterway with an abundance of fish species, which the dolphins appear to have been chasing upstream.

Our work continues company‑wide to steward our water management sustainably.

Ingham’s proudly participates in the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) to help protect and improve the environmental, social and economic conditions of farming, and the health and welfare of animals. Through this platform, we share knowledge and best practice to benefit across the agricultural supply chain.

We are also participating in a collaborative project to develop a climate ‘readiness to adapt’ tool.

Through an industry‑academia collaboration, we have developed a Feed Optimisation Model to better understand the environmental impact of the ingredients used in our animal feed.

All Ingham’s sites have a bespoke Environmental Management Plan that details environmental compliance, risk management and sustainability. Recently, this Plan was independently assessed against the ISO template 14001:2015 (Environmental Management System) to help us continually improve and meet international standards.

Ingham’s Planet measures include greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), water usage and landfill waste generation. We are pleased to report we are making positive progress towards reducing our environmental footprint even as our business continues to grow.

In FY20, we have reduced GHG emissions in our business operations by more than 3,700 tonnes, which is equivalent to driving along the Australian coastline 850 times.

We have improved our data collection on landfill waste to capture more than 99 per cent of data this year, providing us with a credible starting point to benchmark and measure our future performance. This year, we reported 75 per cent of our solid waste was diverted from landfill. The Matamata Hatchery, in New Zealand, reported more than 99 per cent of waste diverted from landfill.

We also have several initiatives aimed at reducing our environmental footprint monitored through our Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool.

The Ingham’s team has rallied right behind these initiatives at the following facilities by:

• introducing the Simply Cups Program at Lisarow, NSW, a closed‑loop solution that upcycles used paper‑based coffee cups, which have replaced the polystyrene cups
• completing LED lighting upgrades at Somerville and Thomastown in Victoria, and Murarrie in Queensland to reduce electricity usage
• installing a rainwater harvesting system at Sorell, Tasmania to reduce water usage by seven per cent, and
• completing two energy efficient projects to reduce GHG emissions at Somerville, harnessing the heat energy from our discharged refrigeration ammonia to reduce gas and electricity consumption and modifying the plant’s largest refrigeration compressor to reduce power consumption.

We have a dedicated team focused on packaging sustainability. This includes targeting 100 per cent kerbside recyclability of trays by the end of 2025 in line with the Australian 2025 National Packaging Targets. We are focused on incorporating recycled content in our packaging as much as possible without compromising the packaging functionality or food safety. Currently, the average recycled content across our packaging is 30 per cent and more than 90 per cent is reusable or recyclable.

We are also investigating the feasibility of using compostable plastic alternatives in the 2021 financial year to help divert further plastic waste from going to landfill.

We also have several initiatives aimed at reducing our environmental footprint monitored through our Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool.

The Ingham’s team has rallied right behind these initiatives at the following facilities by:

• introducing the Simply Cups Program at Lisarow, NSW, a closed-loop solution that upcycles used paper-based coffee cups, which have replaced the polystyrene cups
• completing LED lighting upgrades at Somerville and Thomastown in Victoria, and Murarrie in Queensland to reduce electricity usage
• installing a rainwater harvesting system at Sorell, Tasmania to reduce water usage by seven per cent, and
• completing two energy efficient projects to reduce GHG emissions at Somerville, harnessing the heat energy from our discharged refrigeration ammonia to reduce gas and electricity consumption and modifying the plant’s largest refrigeration compressor to reduce power consumption.

We have a dedicated team focused on packaging sustainability. This includes targeting 100 per cent kerbside recyclability of trays by the end of 2025 in line with the Australian 2025 National Packaging Targets. We are focused on incorporating recycled content in our packaging as much as possible without compromising the packaging functionality or food safety. Currently, the average recycled content across our packaging is 30 per cent and more than 90 per cent is reusable or recyclable.

We are also investigating the feasibility of using compostable plastic alternatives in the 2021 financial year to help divert further plastic waste from going to landfill.

We strive for zero harm and to send our employees home safely at the end of each workday.

COVID‑19 presented challenges to our business to ensure our people’s health, safety and welfare while continuing to maintain the highest standards of food safety, service and product quality to our customers and consumers.
To prioritise the health, safety and wellbeing of our people, we implemented industry‑leading actions in response to COVID‑19 including:

• establishing an Incident Management Team to coordinate our company‑wide actions and consultation with governments, health agencies, customers and unions to ensure we met safety standards
• providing additional leave benefits to enable our people to stay home, get tested, and stay safe without financial burden
• reconfiguring labour‑intense operations to enable physical distancing – of 1.5 metres in Australia and 2 metres in New Zealand – by installing guarding, and implementing enhanced personal protective equipment (PPE) and high standards of hygiene practices
• providing direction on car‑pooling to ensure safe travel to and from work
• building temporary on‑site facilities, such as lunchrooms, to accommodate physical distancing during breaks
• separating shifts to reduce the number of people at any one time on sites, and
• increasing communication and consultation with employees, including frequent updates on how to stop the spread of COVID‑19 via Workplace.

Our proactive Safety for Life Program operates within our Work Health and Safety Management System. This led to our Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate reducing by 45 per cent to 3.8 and our Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate reduced by 63 per cent to 8.1.

Regrettably, one of our team members suffered a serious incident at Tahmoor in February 2020. We continue to support him with ongoing rehabilitation.

In December 2016, a team member working at Prestons in the weigh label room while stacking and adjusting pallets containing chicken products was injured as a result of being trapped by a robot in a robotic cell. SafeWork NSW investigated the incident.

A Notice of Acceptance of an Enforceable Undertaking under Part 11 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 has since been placed on Ingham’s to finalise the contravention with the following actions:

• develop and implement an electronic platform for a Work Health and Safety Management System designed for use in Ingham’s agribusiness operations
• share the learnings from the incident and the process for developing the electronic platform for the Work Health and Safety Management System
• develop a video to promote SafeWork NSW’s Participative Ergonomics for Manual Tasks (PErforM) Program, and
• partner with a creative advertising organisation to develop a public awareness campaign regarding musculoskeletal disorders.

The full undertaking is available at safework.nsw.gov.au

Ingham’s has implemented a digital platform this year to manage supply chain risks related to quality, ethical sourcing, financial and commercial considerations across the company’s broad range of procurement categories.

This ‘Know Your Supplier’ platform will support Ingham’s ethical sourcing requirements across our supply chain.

Ingham’s is in the process of rolling out a Supplier Code of Conduct to all suppliers to establish expectations regarding human rights, the environment, ethical practices aligned to legal requirements, other relevant policies and international good practice.

We are taking steps to continue to safeguard and exclude children and forced labour from our operations and supply chains in accordance with the Australian Modern Slavery Act requirements.

This includes:

• introduction of a Whistleblower Policy
• developing training and tools to monitor our progress
• engaging a software solution to assess
• risks across our supply chain
• updating supply agreement templates to include a modern slavery clause, and
• developing a comprehensive policy for modern slavery.