Background
With a rich history dating back to the founding of New Orleans Cold Storage in 1886, Lineage Logistics and its team members around the world take pride in a deeply rooted commitment to being conscientious stewards of the environment as well as responsible corporate citizens. Since its formal establishment in 2012, the Lineage you know today has only sharpened its focus and accelerated its efforts to develop a systematic and integrated approach to managing our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) opportunities, risks and impacts.
In June 2022, we engaged a global, cross-functional Lineage team to formalize our ESG program and develop a strategic roadmap to inform our sustainability goals moving forward. While the area of ESG is ever-evolving, it is important to acknowledge Lineage’s existing and ongoing commitment to advancing these principles across the cold chain - and how they influence our future aspirations in ESG.
FROM OUR LEADERSHIP
With their 2008 acquisition of a single location in Seattle, Washington, Bay Grove laid the foundation for the Lineage we know today – an ambitious, deeply entrepreneurial organization with a tradition of welcoming the industry’s best, most respected companies in to our family each year.
Greg Lehmkuhl
President & CEO
Environmental:
Protecting Our Planet
As one of the world’s leading temperature-controlled industrial REITs and logistics solutions providers, Lineage plays a significant role in the global food supply chain. Accordingly, we have and always will take our commitment to sustainability seriously.
Over the last decade, we have implemented ambitious initiatives to reduce our energy consumption with quantifiable and impactful targets. In fact, 2022 marks the fourth consecutive year that Lineage has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for its innovation in energy management solutions. Our sustainability efforts, led by our award-winning Data Science team in collaboration with Engineering and Procurement, have resulted in a 33% reduction in energy consumption since 2015, offsetting approximately 55,000 households of consumption.
Given energy is one of our highest operating expenses, we will continue to explore opportunities to further reduce our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Based on recent investments in renewable energy technology, we are the 13th largest producer of solar energy globally. By 2050, we anticipate we will have over 300MW of solar-generating capacity, making Lineage the third largest solar energy producer in the world.
In 2021, we took our commitment to sustainability one massive step forward by signing the Climate Pledge, joining co-founders Amazon and Global Optimism, with a commitment to become carbon neutral by 2040 – ten years ahead of the Paris Climate Agreement.
As an important step forward in our ambition to become carbon-neutral, we enhanced our Colton Agua Mansa facility to include groundbreaking clean energy technology. This is the first facility in the Lineage network able to generate 100% of its energy consumption on-site. Partnering with PowerFlex and Mainspring Energy, Lineage’s Colton Agua Mansa facility features 8,426 individual solar panels and two linear generators that, combined, can produce 100% of the facility’s energy consumption on a net basis.
FROM OUR LEADERSHIP
With their 2008 acquisition of a single location in Seattle, Washington, Bay Grove laid the foundation for the Lineage we know today – an ambitious, deeply entrepreneurial organization with a tradition of welcoming the industry’s best, most respected companies in to our family each year.
Greg Lehmkuhl
President & CEO
Governance:
Safeguarding Our Future
As we prepare for our future, we have undertaken a series of initiatives to ensure that our company is properly and appropriately evaluating all near-term and future risks to the business. To help manage the Company's growth and evolution, we have established a Sarbanes-Oxley internal control framework, an internal audit organization and are in the process of establishing a global ethics & compliance team.
Next Steps in ESG
As an initial step in our accelerated and ambitious ESG journey, Lineage recently completed a materiality assessment and identified several key areas of focus in which we will continue to invest and expand our leadership, including:
- GHG Emissions
- Food Waste Management
- Team Member Attraction, Engagement and Retention
- Talent Development and Advancement
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Climate Resiliency
- Date Security and Cybersecurity
- Responsible Innovation, Solutions and Investments
To hold ourselves accountable, we are committed to publishing our inaugural ESG report in the first half of 2023. The report will provide transparent information for all of our key stakeholders – including customers, team members and investors – and will share distinct and relevant performance metrics as well as an outline of our future goals.
The scope of the report will be informed by our materiality assessment and will be inclusive of Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions.
As we continue to live our purpose of transforming the food supply chain to eliminate waste and help feed the world, we look forward to keeping you updated on our progress.
Should you have any questions or require additional information, please contact our Marketing & Communications team at [email protected].
FROM OUR LEADERSHIP
With their 2008 acquisition of a single location in Seattle, Washington, Bay Grove laid the foundation for the Lineage we know today – an ambitious, deeply entrepreneurial organization with a tradition of welcoming the industry’s best, most respected companies in to our family each year.
Greg Lehmkuhl
President & CEO
Social:
Supporting Our Communities
Our people, or “team members,” are the backbone of the company, and they are core to everything we do – and everything we aspire to be as an organization. In March 2021, Lineage appointed its first Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to oversee our social responsibility programs. Since then, we have made significant strides to foster an inclusive workplace, including the establishment of six employee resource groups (ERGs) that are designed to create communities of inclusion and a safe forum for dialogue on topics of diversity.
At Lineage, our purpose – to transform the food supply chain to eliminate waste and help feed the world – drives us to focus every day on how we impact the world and especially the communities in which we live and work. That’s why we are passionate about being a force for good within the communities our team calls home. We are proud to partner with Feeding America and the Global FoodBanking Network to combat food insecurity and reduce food waste. Our work with and on behalf of Feeding America earned Lineage the honor of being named a Visionary Partner in September 2020—placing Lineage among the likes of Amazon, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Walmart.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when food safety and security were thrust into the spotlight, Lineage launched its “Share a Meal” campaign, in which we donated $5 million and delivered 115 million meals to food-insecure families, crushing our initial goal of 100 million meals delivered. This was accomplished through various partnerships, including work with Stephen & Ayesha Curry’s Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation, NBA superstars such as Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, and Jayson Tatum, the Miami Heat, Duke Basketball, and soccer player Patrice Evra of Manchester United – among many others.
To further amplify our efforts, in 2021, we took our commitment to giving back to another level with the launch of the Lineage Foundation for Good. With the goal of reducing food waste, fighting food insecurity, and empowering social and economic mobility of our communities. The Lineage Foundation for Good leverages Lineage’s organizational access, influence, experience, and expertise to connect food produces with the people who need it most. At its inception, the Foundation set a goal to donate 500 million meals to people in need by 2025. To date, it is on track to significantly exceed this goal.
Additionally, in order to help families impacted by the conflict in Ukraine, we announced a $50,000 donation to two organizations in the region and matched all donations made by team members, vendors and customers, raising over $250,000 through the initiative.
FROM OUR LEADERSHIP
With their 2008 acquisition of a single location in Seattle, Washington, Bay Grove laid the foundation for the Lineage we know today – an ambitious, deeply entrepreneurial organization with a tradition of welcoming the industry’s best, most respected companies in to our family each year.
Greg Lehmkuhl
President & CEO