Our Purpose

Family meal

TRANSFORMING
LIVES THROUGH THE
SCIENCE OF FOOD

Our purpose is why we do what we do.
It inspires us, and makes us strive to do our best. 

PURPOSE intro 2021

Living our purpose every day

We’ve been working to transform lives for over 160 years, growing our business and making a positive impact on society.

Whether it’s by supporting healthy living, building thriving communities or caring for our planet, we live our purpose every day, in everything we do.

Our purpose is our guiding light, enabling our people to achieve remarkable things.

See how we are tracking against our Purpose commitments, in our Purpose Report 2022

Supporting healthy living 22
Supporting healthy living purpose icon
We help people make healthier and tastier choices when they eat and drink, and lead more balanced lifestyles.
Building Thriving Communities 22
Building thriving communities icon - yellow
We help build thriving communities where we operate and support people to achieve their potential.
Caring for our planet 22
Caring for our planet purpose icon
We care for our planet and help protect its natural resources for the benefit of future generations.

We have set ourselves some ambitious commitments and targets over the next 10 years for the three pillars of our purpose

We support healthy living by using our ingredients and expertise to help people make healthier and tastier choices when they eat and drink, and to lead more balanced lifestyles.

These are our commitments:

 • By 2025, we will have helped improve the lives of over 250,000 people by supporting programmes that promote healthier lifestyles and activities.

 • By 2025, through our no/low calorie sweeteners and fibres, we will have helped remove 9 million tonnes of sugar from people’s diets, equivalent to 36 trillion calories.

 • By 2025, we will have helped our colleagues improve how they look after their physical and mental wellbeing so they can be their best at work and in their daily lives.

We build thriving communities where we operate and support people to achieve their potential.

These are our commitments:

 • By 2025, we’ll have supported the education of over 100,000 children and students through learning programmes and grants, helping them attain skills for life.

 • By 2025, we’ll have provided over 3 million nutritious meals for people in need.

 • By 2025, we’ll achieve gender parity in our leadership roles.

We care for the planet we live on and help protect its natural resources for the benefit of future generations.

These are our commitments:

  • By 2025, we'll have met our commitment to be carbon net zero. 
  • By 2030, we’ll have delivered a 30% absolute reduction in our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions, with an ambition to reach a 20% reduction by 2025.
  • By 2030, we’ll have delivered a 15% absolute reduction in our Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.
  • By 2025, we’ll have eliminated coal from all our operations.
  • By 2023, 100% of the electricity we purchase will be from renewable sources.
  • By 2030, 100% of our waste will be beneficially used, with an ambition to reach 75% by 2025.
  • By 2030, we’ll have reduced water use by 15%.
  • We’ll maintain sustainable acreage equivalent to the volume of corn we buy globally each year, currently 1.5 million acres, and through partnerships we’ll accelerate the adoption of conservation practices.
UN Sustainable Development Goals

Tate & Lyle is a signatory of the UN Global compact, the world’s largest sustainability initiative. In doing so, we have committed to supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We have assessed the goals and have decided to focus on those SDGs which are most closely aligned to our purpose and where we can have most impact. These are:

 

Tate and Lyle's priority UN Sustainable Development Goals

 

 


Tate & Lyle PLC is also a member of the FTSE4Good Index Series*. The FTSE4Good Index Series recognises companies demonstrating strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices.

FTSE4Good

*FTSE Russell (the trading name of FTSE International Limited and Frank Russell Company) confirms that Tate & Lyle has been independently assessed according to the FTSE4Good criteria, for further information please see the FTSE4Good website here.

Our ESG disclosures

We are proud to share details of our how we are meeting our environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) commitments and participate in a number of assessments, including: EcoVadis, CDP, DJSI, Sustainalytics, WBA Food and Agriculture Benchmark, and the ISS QualityScore & Corporate Report

Our ESG ratings are published on these organisations’ website and demonstrate our progress over time. For instance, EcoVadis awarded Tate & Lyle a silver sustainability rating in 2020, which we retained for 2021, which ranks us as one of the top 25% most sustainable businesses/organisations globally. We have also received a high score of 83% in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

ESG - Download Hub