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Sustainability strategy

Acting
Strategy

Our journey towards sustainability drives us to explore innovative solutions and make this a central theme in our operating strategy. With a future-oriented vision and a solid commitment to sustainability, we are shaping the global energy landscape toward a cleaner, more sustainable future.

Our sustainability strategy permeates the five priorities for generating value: Agricultural Productivity & Efficiency, Mobility, Second Generation Ethanol (E2G), New Renewable Products and Power, with a commitment to management and execution as a long-term responsibility.

This agenda also has robust governance, which is essential to guide our operations in a transparent and responsible manner.

What makes up Raízen's Sustainability Agenda?

It is made up of 5 main pillars. They are:

Materiality

This is the process where we listen to our stakeholders and analyze documents (both internal and external) to identify the most relevant Sustainability topics for Raízen. At this stage, we engage an external consultancy firm to dive deep into documents, reports, studies and strategies apposite to our sector.  In accordance with the double materiality concept, we accordingly identify both the impacts of our business on the economy, society and the environment and the impacts of externalities on our results and performance.

Climate change & greenhouse gas emissions

  • Risks: Cost of implementing GHG mitigation plans and their emissions, in addition to changes in regulatory aspects for the topic at national and international levels.
  • Opportunities: Incentive for renewable fuels.

Crop management & biodiversity

  • Risks: Activities in agricultural operations, decreased availability of natural resources and intensive use of natural resources in the supply chain.
  • Opportunities: Access to differentiated markets through regenerative practices , biological pest control, ecological restoration and minimum socio-environmental conduct requirements of agricultural certifications

Water management

  • Risks: Potential impacts on the quality of soil, air and water resources.
  • Opportunities: Water and energy efficiency, use of water as a shared resource.

ReduZA: Raízen's water management program, focused on promoting the business's water resilience through the reuse of water in our processes, elimination of waste and interaction with water as a shared resource.

Sustainable Procurement

  • Risks: Security requirements for activities in the supply chain, risks of violation of human and labor rights and compliance guidelines.
  • Opportunities: Increased agricultural productivity and strengthening local labor, promotion of human rights in the supply chain, optimization of the use of natural resources and GHG emissions.

Human Rights and well-being

  • Risks: Health and safety requirements and other problems related to work and violations of human rights.
  • Opportunities: Improvement of working conditions in operating locations, programs aimed at well-being and improvement of worker quality of life and promotion of a safety culture.

Ethics and governance

  • Risks: Bureaucratization of processes, changes in legislation related to the commercialization of products in international markets and the occurrence of non-compliance with legal requirements and compliance risk.
  • Opportunities: Joint action with other interested parties, influence on the ethical behavior of employees, based on policies, procedures and training.

Diversity & inclusion

  • Opportunities: Inclusion and retention of underrepresented groups, promotion of training and education, Gains in efficiency with teams (based on satisfaction in the work environment); Programs aimed at promoting diversity; Reduction of social inequalities.

Community engagement

  • Risks: Socio-environmental impacts, interaction with traditional communities or indigenous peoples and violation of human rights.
  • Opportunities: Development of localities, improvement in the quality of life of people benefiting from social projects and qualification of the local workforce.

Strategic Sustainability Plan

Based on material topics, since the 2018/2019 harvest we have developed and kept our Strategic Sustainability Plan updated, which contains long-term goals and actions with direct involvement of our VP and CEO. This endeavor has significantly enhanced the maturity of our Raízen ESG Agenda management and governance. For each of the topics, we have set ambitions and objectives to be achieved by structured actions and conducted by technical working groups, which report indicators and progress to the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee.

Public commitments

We are committed to generating positive impact through our operations, and this commitment extends to the influence we exert on our partners to advance sustainability. Making public commitments is a tangible way to demonstrate leadership's commitment to ESG (environmental, social and governance) goals and influence future strategic objectives. Therefore, in 2018/2019, we made public our commitments until 2030, aligned with 15 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN 2030 Agenda and our material themes.

Governance Forums

Corporate governance is essential to guide our operations in a transparent and responsible manner. To ensure the advancement of the Strategic Sustainability Plan and Public Commitments, we have Governance Forums that deal exclusively with Sustainability themes, namely:

Corporate Social Responsibility Committee (CSR)

Composed of shareholders Shell and Cosan, independent directors, in addition to the CEO and Vice-Presidents of Raízen. This is a committee that advises the deliberations of the Board of Directors, promoting specific analyzes and contributing to the improvement of the collective knowledge of the directors.

Raízen Sustainability Committee

Composed of the CEO, some Vice-Presidents and directors responsible for material issues. Its main objective is to align the strategic direction and deliberate advances in the sustainability agenda.

Forums and Thematic Committees

Composed of senior leadership responsible for material topics, together with topic experts. Its main objective is to conduct the tactical plan to ensure progress, which can be divided into specific Committees by theme, such as the Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

Sustainable
Finance

As promoters of decarbonization solutions to accelerate the energy transition, we seek opportunities to attract investment to boost our expansion. We began the Sustainable Finance journey in 2021 and currently have operations with an ESG seal linked to goals, as well as associated with renewable projects. Below, we highlight our main documents on this agenda:

Circularity is part of the sugarcane energy sector

The Circular Economy is a strategic concept in which waste becomes inputs for the production of new products guided by three axes:

At Raízen, this concept is present in several phases of production processes, such as the production of second generation ethanol (E2G) and bioenergy from bagasse, the reuse of water from sugar cane, the use of industrial waste as fertilizers in the field, among other initiatives. The efficiency of our processes guarantees greater value generation and business continuity.

Design out waste and pollution

Keep products and materials in use and at their highest value

Regenerate natural systems