KWS Sustainability Ambition 2030
Filling sustainability with life
We have presented our roadmap with measurable objectives in the shape of our Sustainability Ambition 2030. A number of employees describe their contribution to achieving those goals.
Research and Development, Strategy, Customer Management, and Risk Management: All of them were involved in defining our categories and milestones for the Sustainability Ambition 2030. Various working groups and stakeholders came together and formulated six goals that will accompany us until 2030 and beyond (see the info box). Many colleagues are already working on highly diverse projects that are all making a major contribution to those goals being reached.
Marcel Agena (Manager Corporate Sustainability) describes what our path to greater sustainability looks like. Carsten Schramm (Head of Construction Management) talks about how sustainable construction is put into practice at KWS. Mark Bieri (Digital Farming Manager) explains the importance of our digital solutions for making agriculture more sustainable. And Nina Behnke (Sugarbeet Resistance Breeder) speaks about developing beets that are resistant and tolerant to viruses. |
Info
The six goals of our Sustainability Ambition
Product impact
Securing food production
- Annual increases in farmers’ yields by 1.5% thanks to progress in plant breeding and
- Use of digital solutions on >6 million hectares
Minimizing the use of resources
- Investment of >30% of the R&D budget p.a. in reducing the use of resources
- Suitability of >25% of KWS’ varieties for low-input farming
Increasing varietal diversity
- Increase in the number of crops from 24 to 27 by means of targeted breeding programs
Supporting sustainable nutrition
- Suitability of >40% of KWS’ varieties for direct use in the food we eat
Corporate responsibility
Improving our ecological footprint
- Reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 50% by 2030; achievement of our goal of being net zero by 2050
- Rollout of scorecards
Strengthening our social commitment
- Spending at least 1% of EBIT p. a. on social projects worldwide
- Enhancing employee loyalty
- Reduction in the number of occupational accidents/illness rate
Corporate Sustainability
“Sustainability is not a state, but a perpetual process”
Just what is sustainability? Many regard it as another word for “environmentally friendly.” Yet that is only part of it. By definition, sustainability is acting in a way that takes into account present needs as well as those of future generation. Ecological, economic and social behaviors play a role in that.
Acting sustainably and achieving financial success are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary: Sustainable decisions are the way to long-term economic success. Sustainability is a mindset where ecological, economic and social concerns are weighed against each other and have equal ranking. This way of thinking must be an aspect of our corporate culture and should be applied by all of us.
In my professional role, my goal is to create awareness for sustainability among all employees. I’m always willing to answer questions and support projects. We can achieve our sustainability ambitions at KWS only if every single one of us does their bit and we keep on making sustainable decisions in the coming months and years – and also deal with failures honestly and frankly.
KWS has taken an important step this year with its Sustainability Ambition 2030 and has set clear and ambitious goals. We’ve therefore resolved to do a lot and will also keep that up beyond 2030. After all, sustainability is not a state, but a perpetual process. |
Marcel Agena
Manager Corporate Sustainability
Construction
Potential for lighthouse projects
After final building permission has been obtained, our new elite storehouse in Einbeck is intended to be a role model for sustainable construction at KWS moving ahead. Its energy consumption will be just 40% that of a standard building, and its sustainable design is also new. Where possible, we use only materials whose production process has a low carbon footprint and that can be recycled when the building is demolished. We also use sunlight to generate electricity. If our photovoltaic systems deliver surplus power, we can even feed that into the company’s own high-voltage ring. We also intend to use heat recovery systems in all areas in order to reuse energy from the processes and the ambient air. We don’t plan to use rainwater for the toilets at the elite storehouse for cost reasons – but will probably do so in other projects.
Costing €30 million, the elite storehouse is our biggest new building project at the moment, yet our team is involved in all the planning of our global companies. We currently have ten projects in the preliminary planning stage. We also want to promote the idea of sustainability in countries where it’s not yet so widespread. As a result, our buildings might even become lighthouse projects in some places.
Of course, there are some constraints we face. The industry must first adapt to higher demand for sustainable building materials. Wood has its limits when it comes to statics, and – despite all efforts – a greenhouse isn’t exactly a prime example of energy efficiency due to the special requirements it needs to meet. Fire prevention requirements mean we also can’t simply put photovoltaic systems on existing buildings. That’s different in the case of new buildings: We’re implementing a natural means of fire prevention at the elite storehouse in the shape of green roofs and facades.
Those efforts mean the storehouse is definitely more expensive than a standard building – we put the extra costs at 20%. But that will pay off in the form of lower energy and maintenance costs. As you can see, we take the issue seriously – but then you could say it’s part of our DNA: It’s not for no reason that our slogan has always been “Sustainability begins with seed” – and we also need to apply that to our construction projects. |
Carsten Schramm
Head of Construction Management
Digital farming solutions
“Linking cost-effectiveness and sustainability more closely”
Our Sustainability Ambition 2030 states that we want to enable yields to be increased by a quarter using digital solutions. Our digital tools will help us achieve that target – and one we mainly use now is digital remote sensing with satellite images. As a result, we can keep an eye on cultivation conditions on a farm over the entire growth period: For example, we help choose the right location to grow a variety and the seeding rate or determine the best time to harvest crops. Thanks to our digital farming solutions, we can look at each square centimeter of a field individually.
That didn’t use to be possible: Once we’d shipped our seed, we knew little about how it was used, nor did we have any control over that. And because there are fewer and fewer farms and they have a greater area to cultivate, we weren’t able to obtain empirical data. We aim to use our digital data sources to tap the potential here to the full again.
Farmers embrace our digital farming solutions because they recognize what benefits they deliver: higher yields, more vigorous plants and less management work.
The prime advantage of our tools is therefore that they help farmers do their job better. However, you can’t separate cost-effectiveness and sustainability from each other. Our digital solutions help tailor the use of fertilizer to actual needs, for example. That not only reduces the use of nitrogen, but also saves time and money. We can identify individual weeds and so cut the amount of pesticide used. A calibrated seeding rate means more biomass is produced within a field. And last but not least, our solutions can also make a small contribution to feeding the world’s population better.
Because we at KWS have a broad product portfolio, crop rotation aspects have always played a major role. We accompany farms over several years and also try to help preserve the soil’s health and fertility. KWS likewise still has a lot of potential in this area with new digital solutions. |
Mark Bieri
Lead Digital Farming Solutions
Breeding
Less use of resources thanks to resistant and tolerant beet
By developing varieties that protect themselves against diseases and pests, we can make a key contribution to ensuring that less chemical pesticide has to be used in farming. A recent example in the case of sugarbeet is the development of varieties that are protected against yellowing viruses. These viruses are transmitted by aphids and can reduce yields by 30% to 50%. Up to now, farmers’ strategy has been to combat aphids with chemical agents called neonicotinoids. They prevented the transmission of yellowing viruses. Alternative solutions have to be found as a result of the ban on neonicotinoids in the EU – and breeding plays a vital part in that. We aim to develop sugarbeets that, despite being infested by viruses, remain green and vigorous and deliver a stable yield. We breeders sometimes feel like detectives in the hunt for the trait “virus resistance and virus tolerance.” A big help in that is the breeding activities that were conducted previously, but were not pursued further after neonicotinoids were launched. We were able to use the seed we’d kept right here in our elite storehouse to restart that breeding work. However, we’re also searching for new sources of resistance in wild beet. We first have to understand why some wild beet lineages or just single plants are resistant so that the desired trait can be crossed into our varieties using conventional breeding steps. Developing varieties that are resistant and tolerant to viruses is genuine teamwork: Breeding, Research, Phytopathology, Seed Technology and Agro Service work hand in hand, and there’s still a lot to be done, given that yellowing viruses represent a real threat to sugarbeet cultivation. We can offer farmers in severely affected regions a solution approach in the shape of MARUSCHA KWS, KWS’ first special variety that is tolerant to yellowing viruses. |
Nina Behnke
Sugarbeet Resistance Breeder
© KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA 2025
