Sustainability
Grow better - preserve better - advise better
Our sustainability practices
When vegetables are your core business, thinking green is essential. Working with and close to nature, we implement long-term, structural solutions that improve our environmental performance.
Continously monitoring the condition of our terroirs, energy use, resource management, and emissions, we seek maximum compatibility with what nature provides.
Our Do Food Good sustainability ambitions
embedded in the Crop’s strategy
Within our “Do Food Good” purpose, we’ve refined our sustainability ambitions within the existing strategic pillars. This has been a very deliberate choice, as sustainability is fully integrated in our strategy. We can do this in a credible way, as with Do Food Good, sustainability is at the heart of our corporate positioning.
We can now find our sustainability actions back under the following strategic pillars:
Grow better
Preserve better
Advise better
Sustainability at Crop’s is not a separate initiative, it’s part of who we are. With clear priorities, strong engagement, and a strategy rooted in purpose, we’re building a better future for Crop’s, the communities we serve, and the environment we operate in.
The story of harmony - Belgium
Our flagship environmental initiative focuses on restoring the Haut-Geer nature reserve in Belgium’s historic agricultural region. By partnering with Natagora and Apligeer in 2014 we revived the decaying sedimentation reservoirs left unmanaged after a local beetroot refinery closed.
Reviving the 26-hectare area near our fields and factory required diverse expertise to harmonize the natural conditions with our activity, including responsible water management.
Today, Haut-Geer thrives as a natural reserve with over 212 bird species, becoming an ornithological paradise and a biodiversity success story.
We've also integrated a smart water purification system into our production flow. After cleaning and blanching vegetables, we purify wastewater to irrigate fields in the growing season and supply Haut-Geer’s reservoirs in winter.
An on-site biomethanisation facility, designed to convert waste into renewable energy, utilizes vegetable waste and sludge from the wastewater treatment. It also valorises the biogas extracted from the wastewater.
In combination with the energy generated by the solar panels floating on one of our water storage basins, the production site is 95% self-sufficient. An additional advantage of the biomethanisation process is that residual heat can be used as steam to blanch vegetables within our factory. This reduces gas consumption by up to 25%.
State-of-the art production facility - Spain
We are dedicated to transforming towards renewable energy sources and working together with nature to maintain the land and promote biodiversity. Our Spanish factory stands out as a proud example of these activites.
Harnessing solar energy, so abundant in the Extremadura region, we have installed photovoltaic panels in the fields and on factory grounds.
The factory also features an independent water purification system and advanced water management solutions within our fields. Drip irrigation, combined with weather stations, satellite imagery, and soil sensors, has reduced water usage by over 15% in our pepper crops.
