Inside the World's First Carbon Neutral Food Company, with Mauricio Alanis from Maple Leaf Foods

In earning the distinction of being "carbon neutral," Ontario-based Maple Leaf Foods had to reduce its carbon footprint, and then invest in projects that offset its remaining output of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It certainly wasn't an easy process. But it was absolutely worth it, according to Director of Sustainability Strategy and Partnerships Mauricio Alanis. So in this episode, we ask Mauricio why it was so important for Maple Leaf Foods to achieve this goal, how they made it happen, and what it has meant for the company's bottom line. He also shares insights from Maple Leaf's ongoing carbon partnership with Nutrien Ag Solutions. Plus, Tom and Sally discuss how this summer's water management efforts are playing out across North America, where many growers are dealing with historic drought conditions, while others are stuck with submerged farm fields from *too much* rain

Episode Transcript

Mauricio Alanis:

Our purpose, as we've defined it at Maple Leaf, is to raise the good in food. Our vision is to be the most sustainable protein company on earth. And we define that vision across four different strategic sustainability pillars. We don't just look at sustainability through the environmental lens, but we also look at it from a better food, better planet, better care for our animals and better people.

Dusty Weis:

Welcome to The Future. Faster. A sustainable agriculture podcast by Nutrien Ag Solutions, with our very own Tom Daniel, director, North America retail and grower sustainable ag, and Dr. Sally Flis, senior manager, North America sustainable ag and carbon. This is your opportunity to learn about the next horizon in sustainable agriculture for growers, for partners, for the planet. To us, it's not about changing what's always worked. It's about continuing to do the little things that make a big impact. On this week's episode, we're joined by Mauricio Alanis, director of sustainability strategy and partnerships at Maple Leaf Foods in Toronto, the world's first major carbon neutral food company. He'll tell us why the company chose to pursue that distinction, what went into achieving such a monumental milestone, and how Maple Leaf is working with retail partners like Nutrien Ag Solutions to build on its sustainable success. But if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast in your favorite app. Also, make sure you follow Nutrien Ag Solutions on Facebook and Instagram.

Dusty Weis:

I'm Dusty Weis, and it's time, once again, to introduce Tom Daniel and Sally Flis. And Tom and Sally, we talk a lot about resource concerns as part of our sustainability puzzle here, water, of course, a key piece of that puzzle. And my grandfather, a tree farmer, used to say that there was no better way to tell how things were looking on the waterfront than to just get in the truck and go for a drive out through the countryside, look at the crops, look at the leaves, see how things are looking. Now, Sally, I understand you just got back from a cross country road trip across three whole time zones here, so you're probably better informed than most of us about what the water picture is looking like in North America. How are we doing?

Sally Flis:

Well, I think the easiest word to use there is highly variable, Dusty. On the way out to Montana, things were looking pretty dry. On the way back, we followed some pretty heavy storms where places were getting up to five inches of rain from that specific event. And by the time we got back to Eastern Ohio, the corn that was all starting to look curled up was in standing water, so it changed fast. And I think we've had these discussions with some of our previous guests on the podcasts about the level of variability and the intensity of storms that we see and how that has changed in the recent time period versus our past history. So, lots going on with water. And as much as a grower or a crop consultant has the intentions to make a good practice change, what happens for weather that year is always going to be the element that decides what practice actually ends up in the field.

Sally Flis:

And Tom, this leads into our discussions on this whole farm sustainable management program that we want to work towards. And as we look at states like California, that are in these long-term droughts, how is that impacting the whole farm management and not just the individual field management that we've got to make those day-to-day decisions on?

Tom Daniel:

The big problem you've got in states like California right now is this drought situation is not just a seasonal thing for 2022. They've seen drought issues out there now for several years back to back, and there's multiple acres of crop land. I was just reading an article from DTN that was talking about several hundred thousand acres in California have now gone multiple years without having planted crops on them, and not because the growers are not desiring to plant crop. They don't have water. In other words, the water districts in the areas that they're particularly are working in are not assigning water to the agriculture sector. So, they've got multiple fields that can't be farmed. So, they've been using preventative planning and some of the other crop insurance tools, obviously to keep themselves afloat during that time. But now, there's a concern that there is a standing rule within crop insurance that for you to get a crop insurance payment, or even a prevented planning payment on a particular acre, then that crop has to be grown on that acre at least once every four years.

Tom Daniel:

And they're starting to be a discussion, what happens if, because of lack of water, you cannot grow a crop on a specific acre and you start falling out of that four-year cycle of crop rotation? So, there's lots of things that are going to create problems, especially in that Western part of the country that's been so heavily hurt by drought. And Sally, I think it goes back to what we talked about in our role as a sustainable ag and Nutrien Ag Solutions, is that we're going to have to address the limiting factor, right? What is that limiting resource in a geography? And then what are the solutions that we can drive to that can help that particular situation? So, I'm going to use an example in my own backyard right now, cover crop. We've got some growers that really do a lot of it in this area of Kentucky, Southern Indiana, Southern Illinois, but lots of areas don't.

Tom Daniel:

But today, because I was telling you earlier, we've been having 95 to 100 degree temperatures consistently now, going on... This will be our third week. And then the fact that we've had no rain here. The tap has just been cut off in this geography that I'm living in. And so we're starting to see a lot of twisted corn, and we're starting to see some farmers talking about, "Well, this is a crop insurance year. We're not going to make a crop." But I can go down the road and see where growers have planted cover crops, especially in the area of Kentucky where a lot of annual rye grass is used as a simple cover crop in the fall. We are starting to see the differences in those fields. I'm having pictures sent to me by farmers that are saying, "Hey, this field had cover crop. This field didn't. And look at the difference in the corn." So, managing water and practice changes and the things that we can help implement in sustainable ag can have a huge impact for the grower outside of just the hot topics of carbon and those type things.

Sally Flis:

This brings us to our other common point of discussion, Tom, is the data. So, how do we start tracking for growers where these practices and how these practices are having different impacts, like you say, beyond just maybe generating a saleable outcome for that grower, whether it's carbon or a water quality type credit that could also be an opportunity in some of these geographies? How do we start building weather data, grower-level field data, these images that are being sent to you all in one place so that we can start looking at them over time with growers and say, "Okay, where you did this practice, you saw this benefit"? What's the roadblock? What's that limiting resource that keeps you from doing this practice? Or what's the management reason that keeps you from doing this practice across all of your acres so that you can see this benefit? Or is there other things? Is it not the right soil type that you'd see the same benefit if you did that practice in that other field?

Sally Flis:

So, really getting all that data collected so that we can start to build these decision-making tools over time for overall more sustainable outcomes, and hopefully, on top of that, generate these carbon or water quality or other environmental assets that the grower can get some additional benefit from.

Tom Daniel:

Yeah. And Sally, we've kind of approached this almost in a backwards way a little bit. Now, I'm not talking about just Nutrien. I'm talking about other companies in general, have also, I think, gone at it a little backwards. We've looked at, well, if I'm a grain buyer, I have a certain area that I source product from, so I want data around that certain area, right? So, we start going to look for the data based upon someone asking for a data need, right? What we should have is growers should be looking at getting their data into a system with someone who is looking for opportunities for the grower. The field level data is no different from a corn bushel or a soybean bushel that's harvested off that acre. It is harvested information from that farm that has marketable value, but it doesn't have value unless it's aggregated in a way that others can have access to it and look at it.

Tom Daniel:

So, when Sally, you talk about just at the farm level making farm level decisions, based upon the data that they have, but that data has got to be stored somewhere. It just can't be in that notebook that's in my shirt pocket. Okay? It's got to be stored somewhere and analyzed so you can start making good decisions. We visually know that cover crops help manage water and hold water in the soil profile for crops, right? We know that's knowledge that we have. But what is the actual impact from it? That comes from the data. That comes from the production data and practice change data that we can track. And obviously, that's something you and I have talked about more than once. Sometimes these programs that we have out here don't appear to have a lot of value to the grower. They may only be worth a dollar to 2 to $3, an acre for data gathering for whatever the project.

Tom Daniel:

But the key is, what's the value of that aggregated data over one year, two years, three years, where we can start seeing trends, and when we can start identifying downstream partners in a geography that need that data? Right? They're willing to pay for it. And how can we generate a revenue stream for the grower? It all starts with the data.

Sally Flis:

Exactly. Yeah, and making that next best decision or figuring out how to tackle an in-season problem that comes up. If you've got that historical data to look back at when something like that happened similar or how you've answered that question in the past, that's that return on investment value, of maybe we don't see a return on investment the first year that we do cover crops or reduce tillage, or maybe even the introduction of a new product. But if we're collecting the data that goes along with that practice change, that's where we can keep making better and better decisions and bring in that financial element of, how did this impact my bottom line, or what's the best decision I can make, instead of just making a decision based on current field conditions. Not that we don't want to look at current field conditions, but if we've got that historical data to look at at the same time so that we can keep making better and better decisions over time, it can really drive sustainability across those three pillars on the farm, the economic, environmental, and social.

Dusty Weis:

Well. And Tom, you mentioned how, at this point, every company is just sort of trying to chart its own path through the sustainability landscape and taking different approaches and making the best of it that they can, but certainly there's one company that we've heard of recently that's really making waves in the sustainability landscape. Maple Leaf Foods, based out of the Toronto Canada area, is billing itself now as the first major carbon neutral food company in the world. Their director of sustainability strategy and partnerships, Mauricio Alanis is talking to us coming up in a moment here on The Future. Faster.

Dusty Weis:

This is The Future. Faster. A sustainable agriculture podcast by Nutrien Ag Solutions. I'm Dusty Weis, along with Tom Daniel and Sally Flis, and we're joined now by Mauricio Alanis, director of sustainability, strategy, and partnerships at Maple Leaf Foods in Toronto. And Mauricio, Maple Leaf bills itself as the first major carbon neutral food company in the world. Obviously, a tremendous accomplishment there, but let's connect that to the consumer at home. Maple Leaf is the kind of company that touches your life every time you go to the grocery store. So, what are some of the brands that people will recognize under the Maple Leaf umbrella?

Mauricio Alanis:

Yeah, so we have a broad North American based portfolio brands that consumer loves. We have presence from a branded perspective, both in Canada and the US. In Canada, our two leading brands are the Maple Leaf and Schneider's brands. Maple Leaf, you can think of it as the go-to for parents looking for something delicious and nutritious, all natural that they can serve their kids, something made with very simple ingredients, pantry ingredients, as we call them. And Schneider's is the secret weapon when you're having people over. It's what you want to serve. It's the most delicious food that you can have. It's products that have a very long tradition for being thoughtfully crafted with mouthwatering ingredients. And then we have our North American products or brands that cross both from Canada to the US. The Greenfield Natural Meat company are products for the conscious consumers that are looking for natural meats based in humane ways that are vegetable, grain fed, adhering to strict, never, ever raised with antibiotic, and gestation crate-free programs.

Mauricio Alanis:

And then lastly, our plant-based protein division that has the Lightlife, Field Roast and chao cheese brands. They have a very large presence in both the US and Canada, and they have all sorts of snacking, food service, retail options for plant-based protein alternatives.

Tom Daniel:

Wow. That's quite an impressive list of products. And to be honest with you, I wasn't aware of all those, so great opportunity to get updated on all those things. From a Maple Leaf perspective, we've talked about, or it was just mentioned by Dusty, that you're the first major carbon neutral food company in the world. I think a lot of large organizations are finding out right now that adopting a carbon neutral business model, it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. We just kind of want to hear, from Maple Leaf's perspective, what is your sustainability journey right now? And what was the decision that made you want to become carbon neutral? And why is that decision made? And what did it take for you to get there?

Mauricio Alanis:

Yeah, that's a great question, Tom. And I know, Sally, you and I have been working for some time. I don't think we've actually have had the time to go through sort of what our journey has been. Our sustainability journey has really been taking shape for about a decade now, I think, when our strategic blueprint and vision were being crafted by our CEO and our senior leadership team. Our purpose, as we've defined it at Maple Leaf, is to raise the good in food. Our vision is to be the most sustainable protein company on earth. And we define that vision to be the most sustainable protein company on earth across four different strategic sustainability pillars. We don't just look at sustainability through the environmental lens, but we also look at it from a better food, better planet, which is the environmental piece, better care for our animals, and better people.

Mauricio Alanis:

So, strengthening the communities that we work with and the employees as well. The deliberations that took place quite some time ago, focused a lot on ensuring that there was no greenwashing or perceived greenwashing, that we were signing up to ambitious targets that would stretch us in new ways and that were meaningful for the impacts that we've had as a food and ag company on the environment, and ensuring that we're doing the right thing. And so from an environmental perspective, in order to get there, we really needed to get our house in order first. We had to have the right visibility from a emissions perspective. Where did our biggest emission sources come from? If we were to have these ambitious goals, if we were to become carbon neutral, we first needed to understand where they came from. And so we adopted a carbon management strategy. Carbon management strategy, for listeners who don't know, can be summarized quite simply as, first and foremost, look to avoid intensive emissions activities. Second, reduce and/or replace any carbon sources wherever possible. And then lastly, whatever residual emissions you have, offset them or neutralize them.

Mauricio Alanis:

And so, that's what we do. We have done things like ensuring that sustainability was at the forefront of our planning phase for our newly commissions poultry facility. And in doing that, we avoided a lot of kilometers by ensuring that the facility was close by to the chicken farmers. Decisions of that nature really have helped us to avoid really big carbon emission sources at the source. From a reduction or a replacement perspective, for example, we've electrified boilers. We've reduced wherever we can, the usage of unnecessary fuels. Up in Canada, we have a very clean grid, so anytime that we can go from a fuel source to an electrical source, we're reducing or replacing those emissions. And then lastly, we offset any of our residual emissions with high-quality verified offsets as well. Again, for the listeners that may not know, carbon neutral means that a hundred percent of your scope one and scope two emissions are neutralized or offsets.

Mauricio Alanis:

And so we actually do that and we actually go a step beyond and neutralize a portion of our scope three emissions as well. And so, lastly, I'd say my mandate and my team's mandate is to continuously reduce those residual emissions through transformative projects, through projects like the ones that we're doing with Nutrien.

Sally Flis:

Mauricio, you mentioned that part of this being carbon neutral is to be neutral on your scope one and scope two, which is... Scope one, again, is that energy that's associated with the production of the products that you guys have direct control over. And scope two, like you mentioned, is the energy that you're buying or bringing into a facility in order to generate that. So, what are some of the offset programs that you guys have looked at or invested in in order to reduce that scope one piece? Because it sounds like on the scope two part of it, you guys have pretty good access to that clean energy grid in Canada, so that one's been probably the least challenging for you guys to approach. What are some of the things that you've invested in in order to have offsets for that scope one piece?

Mauricio Alanis:

Yeah. So when we offset, we do look at it holistically, Sally, in terms of our entire scope one and scope two emissions. And we have invested in a variety of different projects, all high-quality offsets, all verified, and also all located near where we have operations, so where we have some of our facilities. We have a project, for example, in Manitoba. We have a very big presence in Manitoba, in Canada, where we've invested in a wind energy project, which generates 200 megawatts of wind energy. We have another one in Ontario that invests in waste diversion, which eliminates the waste that goes to landfills. For those that don't know, the emissions that come from landfills can be very harmful as well, because it's typically methane as the landfills decompose.

Mauricio Alanis:

So, investing in waste diversion. And we've also invested in methane capture and conversion to renewable energy from a dairy digester actually in California, also in landfills in Chicago, and done many other projects as well, improved the management of public forest lands to ensure that there's no need to harvest trees in those lands. We've invested in projects that support region ag practices as well. So, really a wide combination of projects all throughout North America.

Tom Daniel:

At Nutrien Ag Solutions, we've been working with Maple Leaf now to implement a lot of the carbon pilots that we've got with growers, and we're starting to transition, as those projects get bigger and our scope and size of those geographies get bigger. Why did Maple Leaf decide that the ag industry was the right avenue to achieve some of your goals? And particularly, why did you choose to work with an ag retailer like Nutrien Ag Solutions in Canada?

Mauricio Alanis:

There's a portion of responsibility here, I think, that played a role. There are varying stats out there based on what is included in that stat, such as land use change or direct emissions and things like that. But the reality is that the ag sector is responsible for a very meaningful amount of emissions globally. And so for us, being part of the ag system, this meant that we needed to do something about it. When we also look at our scope three emissions, the biggest source of our scope, three emissions, i.e. from our supply chain, come from our feed and crop production. And so there was a big incentive for us to really focus on a transformative project that could have a meaningful impact on our emission sources, in this case, our scope three emissions. As you know, Tom and Sally, being able to not only reduce the emissions, but also as it related to agriculture, we are able to remove or sequester emissions and put them back into the soil is a very unique opportunity that we have in this sector that many other sectors or industries don't naturally have.

Mauricio Alanis:

And so I think jumping on that opportunity was also part of the decision-making. Why Nutrien? I believe we have complementary skill sets. We also sit at complementary positions of the supply chain in relation to the farmer. Nutrien sits upstream, of course, of the farmer, providing them with fertilizer, while we sit downstream, purchasing their grains. So, this places the farmer in the middle, creating a natural way for us to collaborate on the shared goals that we've outlined for this project and do so for covering a good portion of the supply for both of our supply chains. So far, just on a personal note, I think that the Nutrien Ag Solutions team is super high caliber. We've all really enjoyed working with you folks and learning alongside of you, so it's been a very meaningful journey. I think the ongoing program that we have really has the ability to scale and make some really, really impactful changes to our overall carbon reduction goals.

Tom Daniel:

Mauricio, I think we talk about teamwork and working with Nutrien Ag Solutions, obviously in the Canadian project, but we can't go without mentioning our teammates in Canada too, that have been instrumental in getting this project off the ground, especially with Michelle Nutting and Michael Nemeth from the corporate sustainability side, who basically started this project in Canada in 2021. And then now with Carlos Romero, who's part of my team, as he manages the carbon project in Canada today. Without those guys, this project wouldn't happen. And I know you feel the same as I do, that they have been just instrumental in making this happen.

Mauricio Alanis:

I totally agree with that, Tom. Those three folks have been totally, totally instrumental to this project. It's been a real pleasure working with them and learning so much from them as well.

Sally Flis:

Yeah, this has been a really strong and a true partnership, as we've worked with Maple Leaf Foods, the projects that we've had going over the last couple years. And currently, we've got a hundred thousand acres enrolled in Western Canada in our partnership program we're working on with you guys. What are the parts of that have really you found the most interesting, or what have you learned from some of the data that we've shared with you guys about the growers that we're bringing into these projects and helping to make that practice change on the ground?

Mauricio Alanis:

Yeah, it's a great question. It's really quite an involved process, as we've learned, sitting a little bit more removed from the farmers versus what you guys have as experience, if you will. Nutrien sits... You guys have boots on the ground. You folks work with the farmers more on a daily basis that we do. We don't own any farms and we don't work with farmers directly, so the learning really has been tremendous for us. I think one of the biggest learnings for us has been around the accounting and methodology, to be honest. It's uncharted territory for all of us in the industry to be thinking about how to incentivize farmers to do interventions that will help sequester carbon and remove their overall carbon emissions or reduce their emissions' intensity of growing those grains, those crops and do so in a way where if there are other parties investing into these programs, that we are able to account for that in an accurate, transparent, a verifiable way and reduce the uncertainty of what is very clearly a very uncertain place to play in, which is nature.

Mauricio Alanis:

There's so many microbes happening at the soil that are playing a role in this whole carbon capture system that we're trying to implement. How do you measure it all? How do you verify it? How do you keep it in the ground? What do you assign as permanence for that carbon? So, all those things have really been something that I have found fascinating, really interesting, and a big, big learning from our end, the different protocols as well that we need to abide by, or that the farmers need to get educated on, things of that nature. I would love to actually ask that back to you, Sally and Tom. What have been some of the learnings that you guys have had through this journey? Obviously, this is something that's much closer to home to you guys, but I would love to hear what you would have to say to that as well.

Sally Flis:

I think I would have to go back to our discussion on data all the time, Tom and Mauricio, of it's a tricky field out there with the data. What's the quality that we're going to get? What can we actually obtain? And then I think the other piece, like you mentioned, that nature aspect of it. I was talking with one of the project managers for the Canadian acres yesterday, and we can get growers signed up for having the intention of making a practice change, but then it really depends on what mother nature hands those growers for the season if we execute on that practice change.

Sally Flis:

And then it ties into that whole, how do we account for intended acres? Or is there any way we can account for good intentions versus practice implemented? And what's the right number of acres to sign up if we know a certain percentage of them for whatever reason may not be able to follow through on the practices they hope to execute that year? So, it's for sure, like you said, a complicated system when we're trying to use nature as part of our solution to the goals that we all have as companies.

Tom Daniel:

Yeah. And I would add to that, I think the big issue that we have is that we're trying to fly a plane as we're building it. And I think a lot of our time, we have only one wing on the airplane, and it's a little hard to maneuver, because the tendency is in the marketplace that the market is not static. It's building and changing as we are trying to navigate through carbon and scope one, scope two, scope three, all those things. We see changes going on all the time, and we see an immature market. I've heard Sally call the market immature more than just a few times. It's just not defined enough sometimes for us to have exact answers on things. So, the teachable moments is those create confusion at the farm level. And so that creates us all problems, because we're trying to educate the grower on the process and what we're going through while the market continues to evolve and change.

Tom Daniel:

And so what we say today may not be true tomorrow because the market has made a shift or a pivot. So, when I say those things, you have a choice. I mean, Maple Leaf had a choice. We could all sit on the sidelines and wait until all of these answers are given, right? Or, we could become engaged in the process and try to shape the market and see what we can do to help define some of these big questions that are going on. So, from Maple Leaf's point of view, sustainability has its own rewards outside of scope one or scope three carbon projects, right? Sustainability at the farm level is about protecting resources, soil, water, and air, and it's improving those resources over time. And we talk about regenerative agriculture and all those practices that can go into making better investments at the grower level. But from a Maple Leaf point of view, we talk a lot around Nutrien about our ESG reporting and dealing with shareholders, and even how the consumer views sustainability. How does Maple Leaf take into all those things like shareholder relations, consumers and ESG reporting?

Mauricio Alanis:

Our CEO, Michael McCain has actually been very outspoken about this in the past, around denouncing shareholder primacy, I believe is how he words it, this idea that in this capitalistic world that we live in, that shareholders should have first vote on everything. That's sort of what has, in some ways, created the mess that we're in right now from a climate perspective. And so when we built our strategic blueprint that I was mentioning before, where we laid out the four pillars of sustainability, we also laid out who our stakeholders were. And we look at our stakeholders, not just from a shareholder perspective, but also consumers, customers, our people, our communities, and shareholders. And so while, yes, for sure, Tom, this is an opportunity to do good and make a profit, our shareholders have certainly taken note of our actions, how we're conducting business, and they're starting to realize that sustainable business can be more profitable and less risky.

Mauricio Alanis:

And so that has voted well, for sure. We've been pioneers in certain different aspects. We were the world's first major carbon neutral food company. We were one of only three Canadian companies when we did it in 2019 to sign science-based targets. We also signed Canada's first sustainability linked loan, a line of credit linked to sustainability targets. So, all these things obviously have voted well from a business standpoint, which is great. From a consumer perspective, consumers are also taking note. I think we can be doing a better job at communicating a lot of the things that we do. There's a bit of that... Up here in Canada, we joke a little bit about the politeness persona of us as Canadians, that we don't want to be... We're a bit bashful about showcasing all the things that we're doing and not wanting to brag. I think we can be doing a bit of a better job with consumers, but we are trying to bridge that divide of all the lingo that exists out there, all the sustainability lingo, cutting through all the greenwashing that is so commonplace in our industry.

Mauricio Alanis:

But at the end of the day, consumers are voting with their wallets, and we do continue to try to make, what we say up here, sustainable attainable, right? A lot of the time sustainable products are not attainable for the common folks, so trying to make sustainable attainable for everybody. But I would just say, overall, this journey has been a wonderfully positive journey for all of our various stakeholders, and one that we feel immensely proud of having started. And although there is much work for us to do ahead, we're still putting sort of one foot in front of the other with very ambitious targets in place.

Sally Flis:

So, Mauricio, you mentioned your sustainability blueprint a couple of times now, and that's kind of what's guided you guys so far through this carbon neutral piece. What's coming up next. So, obviously achieving carbon neutrality was not the end of your sustainability journey. What are you guys looking at in the coming years to continue on that sustainability pathway?

Mauricio Alanis:

This is definitely a journey. It never really ends, right? So, while we have obviously invested in carbon offsets, our ambition is to purchase as few offsets as possible, and rather organically be a company that has very low emissions or net zero emissions. And so we continue to look for transformational projects. So, the regenerative agriculture work that we've done with you guys has been very fruitful, very interesting. We continue to want to explore that further and see where else we could take that, where else we can invest in that field. We've also started to investigate the merits of doing anaerobic digestion, which is diverting some of our organic waste streams and upcycling them into energy. So, today we produce quite a bit of hog waste, hog manure, for example, from our operations. And so we're able to recycle that into, or turn that into energy, into renewable natural gas or electricity. And so we're looking as well at automation system, building automation systems in our facilities and things of that nature.

Mauricio Alanis:

So again, trying to look for those really transformational projects that will continue to help us decarbonize our organization, and also provide some of the added benefits such as increased biodiversity, which obviously regen ag does improve community relationships and things of that nature.

Dusty Weis:

Well Mauricio, what you've achieved at Maple Leaf Foods is an impressive success story, certainly a model that other businesses and organizations can hope to emulate. So, we appreciate your take and the time to tell us about it. Mauricio Alanis, director of sustainability, strategy, and partnerships at Maple Leaf Foods. Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Future. Faster.

Dusty Weis:

That is going to conclude this edition of The Future. Faster. The pursuit of sustainable success with Nutrien Ag Solutions. New episodes arrive every other week, so make sure you subscribe in your favorite app and join us again soon. Visit futurefaster.com to learn more. The Future. Faster. Podcast is brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions, with executive producer, Connor Erwin and editing by Larry Kilgore III. And it's produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses, podcampmedia.com. For Nutrien Ag Solutions, thanks for listening. I'm Dusty Weis.