Honoree: Enterprise – Agriculture Industry

Company Overview

Darling Ingredients is a global leader in creating sustainable food, fuel and feed ingredients from edible and inedible bio-nutrients to help provide for the needs of a growing global population. They are headquartered in Irving, Texas and have over 200 locations on five continents.

Sustainable Business Strategy

Darling’s purpose is to repurpose. At the heart of Darling Ingredients is their vision to create sustainable ingredients that feed and fuel a growing population. By repurposing bio-nutrients, they simultaneously protect the planet and the life it sustains for future generations.  Darling transforms slaughtered animal by-products into valuable feed ingredients for cattle, hogs, fish and chickens, thus creating a sustaining lifecycle for global meat producers. Darling also repurposes these by-products into organic fertilizers and pet foods, and provides sustainable solutions to the foodservice industry by converting waste fats into renewable diesel that powers the cars they drive and the trucks that transport the products they use daily. Darling Ingredients also gets creative with repurposing the water in their operations. In 2018, they reclaimed 1.67 billion gallons of water from animal by-products during the cooking process – that’s enough water to fill more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

For over 135 years, Darling has played a vital role in carbon emissions avoidance and reduction. Simply put, their company’s purpose is to globally repurpose organic waste into sustainable products that improve our quality of life on this planet. They believe their products are important to society, but so is how they produce them. Darling’s employees are wholly committed to working beyond the level of compliance. They operate in ways that leave a positive impact on the environment by providing clean water, reducing GHG emissions, and ensuring safe food and feed. Darling also strives to improve the communities where they live and work, and their employees around the world have made “giving back” a social commitment. Texas has unfortunately been hit by extreme events that demonstrate how the company steps up to support those in need.  During the Texas wildfires in 2011 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017, employees across Darling’s organization donated truckloads of goods and perishables and raised funds to help not only their own employees who were impacted, but the communities as well.

Environmental Stewardship

Darling Ingredients’ Chairman and CEO, Randall C. Stuewe and Martin Guthrie, Director of Environmental Affairs and Sustainability, have been integral to the company’s conservation efforts.

Randall Stuewe has made it Darling’s goal to find economically and ecologically viable ways to provide food, fuel resources and feed for a growing population’s needs. This goal ties in firmly to Darling’s commitment to improving the health of humans, animals, industries and the planet. This commitment is reinforced by the core values Randall established for the company – entrepreneurship, transparency and integrity. He has made these values the foundation for Darling’s activities, setting the company’s path forward as they develop and produce sustainable solutions for the world.

Martin Guthrie executes Randall’s vision by implementing Darling’s CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) programs. Martin leads the company’s CSR team, a cross-functional group of Darling leadership, and has been successful in incorporating, executing and communicating the company’s goals and values into a robust sustainability program.

Conservation Programs

Diamond Green Diesel

Darling and Valero Energy partnered on a renewable energy project called Diamond Green Diesel that began production in 2013 and today annually repurposes approximately 15% of the nation’s recycled animal fats. This project transforms used cooking and distiller oils into 275 million gallons of low-carbon, clean-burning renewable diesel at their Norco, Louisiana facility. Renewable diesel is a molecular match to petroleum-based diesel fuel and can be dropped into the pipeline for distribution. Importantly, their biofuel has a carbon lifecycle low enough to meet the most stringent low-carbon fuel standards in effect today. Diamond Green Diesel’s (DGD) renewable diesel meets the requirements of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS), which mandates reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 10% by 2020 to lower the carbon footprint of transportation. DGD’s biofuels are made from food residuals such as animal fats, used cooking oil and other feedstocks. Rather than placing these materials in landfills or allowing them to go to waste, they are producing sustainable fuel without diminishing the world’s food supply, without using fertile land space, and without diminishing nature’s resources.

Diamond Green Diesel creates, rather than depletes, efficient and sustainable resources that our growing world needs. In 2018, Darling Ingredients produced 163 million gallons of renewable diesel that generated 1.92 million fewer metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum-derived diesel, which equates to taking 456,000 cars off the road for a year. Diamond Green Diesel is continually expanding, with a 2021 target to more than double its annual capacity to 675 million gallons. Darling and Valero are also evaluating the construction of a new plant in Port Arthur, Texas to expand production up to 1.1 billion gallons annually.

Enviroflight

Taking into consideration that the world’s population is increasing by tens of thousands every day, Darling knows firsthand that the pressure on the planet’s food and feed resources is greater now than ever before.

Darling Ingredients thinks of agricultural sustainability from the root source, meaning not only what we eat, but what our food sources eat, too. The company is striving to improve the entire food supply chain from the bottom up. They think creatively beyond food volume and plan for economic and ecological sustainability. They do this by utilizing innovative protein sources to feed the animals that ultimately feed our growing population.

Insects are one of such innovative protein sources. Darling is among the pioneers harnessing the huge potential of insect proteins. In November 2018, they opened a Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) facility in Maysville, Kentucky, making Enviroflight the first commercial-scale plant of its kind in the United States. Their larvae can produce far more protein per acre of farmland than soybeans or chickens—a massive 1-2 million pounds per year as opposed to 1,500 pounds per acre for soy and a mere 265 for poultry. The larvae are fed with distillers dried grains and Darling’s own Cookie Meal®, produced from the recycled bakery and snack residuals, to further optimize the promise of sustainability.

Building a Sustainable Future

Darling’s roots date back to the late 19th century, where they evolved from a small rendering company serving the Chicago stockyards into the world’s leading innovative developer and producer of sustainable organic ingredients. They are proud of the role they play in feeding and fueling a growing population while reducing human impact on the planet, and they plan to continue to grow their business in a sustainable way.

As consumer-facing companies realize their impact on greenhouse gas emissions through the value chain, Darling sees demand increasing for their low-carbon finished products in the future. They believe the solutions they deliver are part of a broader shift occurring around the world, a shift that involves a change in perspective towards the earth’s resources. Whether they are developing eco-friendly fertilizer to enhance crops or producing renewable fuel from industrial residuals, their global purpose is to generate new resources rather than depleting existing ones.

Texan-Led Conservation

Darling has made Texas it’s home because of the state’s culture, location and business values. Centrally located, it provides regional, domestic and even international logistical benefits. Darling employees love living, raising families and working in Texas. The business environment embraces innovation and technology, and the tax burden is low compared with other states. The regulatory environment is friendly to business, yet still matches the company’s philosophy of environmental stewardship.

View Darling Ingredients’ Sustainability Page