KWS Sustainability Ambition 2030
Sustainability
begins with seed
As a leading seed specialist, KWS delivers solutions for profitable, ecologically sustainable and socially responsible farming. KWS is thus a reliable partner to farmers and throughout the agricultural value chain. We call that #SeedingtheFuture.
The agricultural sector faces enormous challenges: It has to produce enough food for the world’s population, which the UN estimates will grow to ten billion by 2050. At the same time, the industry has to tackle climate change, preserve biodiversity and reduce the consumption of resources. Innovative plant breeding can and must play a key part in addressing those challenges successfully and sustainably.
Throughout KWS’ 165-year history, seed has always been the starting point for our quest to make improvements in farming, to allow more food to be produced on less area and using fewer resources, to support production tailored to regional conditions, and to ensure a high level of supply security. By maintaining intensive dialogue with farmers and keeping an eye out for changes and new requirements, we have been able to achieve a high degree of sustainability over decades thanks to our research and breeding work.
Now we have taken the next important step and defined a concrete roadmap containing measurable objectives we intend to attain by 2030. Under this initiative, we will implement our mission of “achieving more with less” transparently for the whole of the KWS Group and make our efforts more clearly visible. The objectives defined in it stake out our further path and will help us reach the milestones along it. |
INFORMATION
The Sustainability Ambition 2030 was presented by CEO Hagen Duenbostel at the beginning of September (to the recording of the event)
Product impact
Focus on our products and solutions
Securing food production and increasing yields
Our goal is to increase overall yields worldwide by 1.5 percent a year. We intend to ensure that through continuous progress in plant breeding. As part of that, we will first use data for all the hybrid varieties in our rye, corn and sugarbeet portfolio that have been newly approved on the German market as baseline values for an annual analysis, the results of which will then be included in calculating the long-term average. The selected crops and breeding programs represent a good cross-section of our overall portfolio. As a result, we can analyze yield progress year by year and determine the average yield increase per annum.
We aim to achieve up to a quarter of the yield target by providing farmers with digital solutions over a total area of more than six million hectares by 2030 – mainly by offering farmers future KWS varieties that obtain approval directly with a perfectly tailored digital extension service. Farmers in 30 countries already rely on the digital tools from the myKWS platform. |
Increasing varietal diversity
Our objective is to expand KWS’ portfolio further so as to give farmers additional crop rotation options that are economically and ecologically sustainable. We aim to achieve that by enriching those options and increasing the number of crops from 24 to 27 with our breeding programs. We will press ahead with expanding our vegetable portfolio in the coming years, for example. One other focus is on crops that can offer alternative or local sources of protein. And last but not least, we are examining the possibility of integrating specific breeding programs for crops that enable or complement sustainable cultivation systems and crop rotations. As a result, we will also promote diversity in crops worldwide as well as biodiversity, while helping to feed the world’s growing population sustainably. |
Minimizing the use of resources
One of the key goals in the European Farm to Fork Strategy is to reduce the use of chemical pesticides in Europe by more than 50 percent by 2030. As part of that, we aim to develop plants for our global markets with greater resistance and tolerance to diseases or environmental influences, for example. By 2030, more than a quarter of our variety portfolio is to comprise low-input varieties that deliver stable yields despite low nitrogen supply, limited water availability and reduced use of chemical pesticides.
To enable this breeding progress, we will invest 30 percent of our research budget with a specific focus on reducing the use of resources (water, fertilizer and pesticides). That will include an annual analysis of our budgets in the future in order to determine what research and breeding activities specifically help achieve that focal goal. |
Helping ensure a sustainable supply of food
Our goal is for more than 40 percent of our varieties to be able to be used directly in producing food and so help feed the world’s population sustainably and healthily, yet in a more eco-friendly way. We intend to achieve that by developing nutrient-rich varieties that, when harvested, can be used in food directly or with little processing (such as in the form of flour). By including new food and protein crops in our research programs and by expanding our breeding programs to include related activities (such as for peas and vegetables), we also ensure more varietal diversity – also on our plates. |
Corporate Responsibility
We also focus on our social responsibility
Improving our ecological footprint and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Our objective is to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions we can influence by 50 percent by 2030 and even get to net zero by 2050. Enhanced technologies, more efficient use of existing plants and resources, and greater use of renewable energy in offices or at breeding stations, for example, are key levers in reducing our emissions.
By introducing a uniform scorecard system moving ahead, we will record data for criteria such as biodiversity, water protection and emissions for all KWS production sites, including the processing plants and internal seed multiplication areas. That will allow us to examine our locations and processes to determine any potential for improvement and to clearly show the ecological footprint of our activities. |
Fostering social commitment and strengthening employees
Our goal is to translate KWS’ corporate values into even greater commitment and to assume more responsibility in society. We intend to accomplish that by investing at least one percent of our annual operating profit in external social projects.
Internally, we will measure customer loyalty in the future by means of a regular global survey. That will enable us to ascertain our employees’ expectations and keep on improving our systems and offerings.
We also aim to monitor the global illness and accident rates more intensively in the future and continuously reduce them. We are currently working to roll out a uniform global system so that we can lastingly minimize the accident frequency rate and number of work-related diseases. That is why we are defining consistent global standards and conduct systematic management training on the subject of workplace health and safety. |
© KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA 2025
