With our targets and metrics, we show our progress related to the material impacts in the area of biodiversity and ecosystems. Our target of reducing the environmental impact of our crop protection products currently pertains to reducing their potential impacts on aquatic nontarget organisms on and near farmland.
Targets related to biodiversity and ecosystems [E4-4]
We strive to enable farmers to produce more while reducing agriculture’s impact on the planet. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the decline in biodiversity is primarily attributable to land-use change, resource exploitation, climate change, pollution and invasive species. Crop protection, next to fertilizers and breeding advancements, has enabled humanity to meet a constantly growing demand for food and animal feed, as well as raw materials for the energy and textile sectors while minimizing land usage for these purposes. This represents a vital step in reducing the necessity of further agricultural land-use change.
Continuous transparency regarding agricultural innovations
We have not currently formulated any targets directly related to the reputation risk identified in the double materiality assessment arising from the negative public perception of our products and our business. We also have not currently defined any targets directly related to the positive impact associated with the reduction in the pressure of additional land-use change. In both cases, we are unable to establish clear targets due to various factors that are not entirely in our control. We nevertheless want to further promote our positive impacts through our own actions and also strengthen society’s trust in our products, for example by making the scientific fundamentals and approaches behind them more accessible and comprehensible. This includes publishing our research as well as safety information pertaining to our future agricultural innovations.
Reducing the environmental impact of our crop protection products
The prerequisite for placing crop protection products on the market is clear proof of efficacy, while at the same time ensuring no harmful impacts on human health and no unacceptable impacts on the environment. Crop protection products are therefore highly regulated by governmental authorities. Through our research and development, we consistently seek to offer crop protection products that have the same or better benefits for farmers, while having less impact on the environment. This contributes to “minimization” as regards the mitigation hierarchy policy according to ESRS. This objective does not include biodiversity offset measures.
Our quantitative target of reducing environmental impacts in the application of our crop protection products in the downstream value chain focuses on products that have already been approved. Such products therefore meet the regulatory requirements. The quantitative goal is currently restricted to reducing the potential impacts of our products on so-called aquatic nontarget organisms on and near land used for farming. This current restriction is due to the scope of the external scientific models we use. According to IPBES, land-use change is by far the biggest direct driver of terrestrial biodiversity decline. Pollution also plays a role here, albeit to a lesser extent. This includes not only fertilizer, industrial chemicals and other substances, but also crop protection products. The target focuses on this negative contribution.
By 2030, we want to reduce the treated-area-weighted environmental impact per hectare of Bayer’s global crop protection portfolio by 30%. We measure target attainment based on the average value over the past five years. The average treated-area-weighted environmental impact per hectare during the period 2014 to 2018 serves as the baseline for our target. The absolute value of the baseline is around 246 (treated-area-weighted environmental impact per hectare). The term selected here “Environmental impact (EI)” is equivalent to the USEtox® characteristic factor of the potentially affected fractions (PAF) of species. The baseline and performance tracking are calculated as the ratio of the cumulative environmental impact and the total treated area. The calculation formula is published on our website in the CP EIR methodology report.
We established this target based on the planetary boundaries concept and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. One of the exceeded planetary boundaries comprises novel substances, which include industrial chemicals and crop protection products. To efficiently address this, we are committed to the goal of reducing the environmental impacts of our crop protection products. Our focus lies on assessing the potential environmental impact related to the application of our crop protection products on fields. It currently is not possible to quantify the planetary boundary for novel substances.
The target is in alignment with the key commitments of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, as well as with Target 7 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Our environmental impact reduction target relates to our global crop protection portfolio applied on agricultural land as part of our downstream value chain activities.
By using the Crop Protection Environmental Impact Reduction (CP EIR) methodology, we apply a robust, scientifically sound tool to enable a comparison of the relative environmental impact of different crop protection products on a farm. Moreover, this enables us to choose and develop products that have less environmental impact while enabling farmers to achieve the desired results.
We were the first company in the agricultural industry to annually assess the potential global environmental impact of our crop protection portfolio with the help of externally developed consensus models.
PestLCI has been developed and established by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in cooperation with other institutes and organizations since 2006. This model estimates how much of an active ingredient enters the adjacent environment following application of a crop protection product in the field.
USEtox® has been developed under the auspices of UNEP-SETAC in cooperation with various universities and institutions since 2008. This model determines the concentration of crop protection products in the immediate vicinity and assesses their potential impact on aquatic ecosystems (defined as the potential impact on nontarget aquatic organisms). USEtox® is also recommended by the European Commission as a model for the analysis of a product’s life cycle and environmental footprint.
As the science of environmental impact assessment is continually evolving, we are working with a scientific consortium developing these models. We also collaborate with further experts in the field to be able to expand the scope of the current models. Currently, the models are limited to potential impact on aquatic ecosystems. These models and the underlying methodology are publicly available. In the future, we plan to expand the calculations to soil organisms and pollinators as soon as these model expansions have been published by the scientific consortium.
The following stakeholders were surveyed through an external agency about their perception of our targets and the associated measurement parameters and actions: the Foundation for Research on Biodiversity, the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA), the University of Southern Denmark and the Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). Our Supervisory Board was informed in 2025 about the current status of the CP EIR target.
Impact metrics related to biodiversity and ecosystems change: reducing the environmental impact of our crop protection products [E4-5]
Our CP EIR assessment compares the impacts of crop protection products. The calculation results in a numerical Environmental Impact Score per application scenario. The score depends mainly on the environmental profile of the active ingredient applied in the field, the amount applied and other factors influencing emissions into the environment, such as application method and timing.
According to available data, we reduced the treated-area-weighted environmental impact per hectare of our global crop protection portfolio between 2020 and 2024 by approximately 14% against the 2014-2018 baseline. This reduction corresponds to our assumptions. We review the progress annually as part of the planning process at Crop Science. This reduction is mainly due to the continuous transformation of our crop protection portfolio.
Included in our indicator are all Bayer crop protection products that can be characterized by PestLCI and USEtox®, are applied in the field worldwide and are recorded in the AgroWin system. Data is collected by external data suppliers for a single growing season. The previous year’s data normally is not available until the fall of the following year due to the different dates for data collection in different regions and to the processing of the data, which means that the performance reporting is delayed by one year.
To ensure the transparency and credibility of the baseline, performance tracking and CP EIR calculation, only third-party data, including substance characteristic data, is used for the models. The crop protection application data in the AgroWin system mainly originates from external data providers. A part of this data is based on our internal estimates. The CP EIR assessment does not account for the environmental impact of other cultivation methods applied within farming and integrated crop management, such as plowing, seed bed preparation, fertilizing or harvesting.
We have provided an extensive inventory of detailed historic market data on crop protection applications globally to the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). DTU combined the crop protection inventory data with PestLCI and USEtox® to calculate a global crop protection impact assessment. An external panel of experts conducted an independent assessment on how Bayer and DTU apply the models to assess the environmental impacts of crop protection products, and how we measure performance in relation to our own target attainment.