Issue 3 | January 2020
A Message from our Chief Sustainability Officer

Let me start by wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year. I am proud of the work we accomplished in 2019, the progress we have made on our sustainability journey and our efforts to reach some of our most ambitious goals.
 
I am excited about the new year and the start of a new decade. I’m certain we can expect it to bring many new challenges and opportunities for our company to grow and thrive, particularly as it relates to sustainability.
 
I am pleased to begin 2020 with the latest issue of the OSI Sustainability Newsletter, which features some of OSI’s most compelling stories yet. In this newsletter, you will learn about many of the things we are doing to address one of the most critical components of our sustainability journey: the environment.
 
Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those who have been affected by the bushfires in Australia as well as those suffering under droughts and extreme temperatures. It is no secret that climate change is presenting new challenges for our industry as we work to feed a growing global population. This means the need for reducing our environmental impact and being good stewards of our planet is more important than ever.
 
There are also stories in this issue that talk about what it means to work safety and grow a career as part of the OSI family. We’re celebrating some of the achievements of our facilities from last year and the efforts the company makes to ensure workplace health and safety remains a top priority.
 
The hard work we continue to do at OSI will ensure our business thrives, our people are healthy and fulfilled and the environment and animals are being treated well. I know 2020 is going to be another incredible year for us. I look forward to seeing what we accomplish. 
 
Sincerely,
Nicole Johnson-Hoffman

P.S. Did you know that most of the newsletter stories and others can be found on the OSI Sustainability Blog ? A new story is published every Thursday. I encourage you to visit the blog often and let us know what you think and if you have a recommendation for a story to be featured.


EHS_2
Like any successful organization, OSI establishes goals for the company and a number of our activities. It is important that we fully understand our goals, as clearly defined goals give us direction. Our goals show us where we need to be as an organization and the measurement of our success against these goals shows us when we have missed the mark.

To ensure we are doing everything we can to achieve our goals, we need a playbook. Just as any good sports team knows, a playbook helps the team visualize targets and determine what is needed to be successful. It also ensures that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and that fundamental tasks and more established, complex goals are used as guiding lights. The approach of understanding our goals and operating from a playbook helps us achieve many things at OSI, but perhaps none more important than our environmental, occupational health and safety goals.

The newly released OSI Group Environment, Occupational Health and Safety (EHS) Policy Statement is our guiding light in the United States for ensuring that we are doing everything we can to protect our shared environment, our people and the communities in which we operate.

OSI began participating in the European Union’s Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) in 2001 and now has seven facilities in Europe that are EMAS certified. Three of them were even nominated for EMAS Awards in 2019: Bábolna , Hungary; Enns, Austria; and Ostróda, Poland.

At OSI, we have created and follow stringent environmental standards that are based on local laws, our experience and the partnerships we have established throughout the supply chain. To ensure we are doing everything we can to protect the environment, we also adhere to third party standards that are widely respected and followed in our industry. By following third party and internal environmental standards, we can make sure that we continually improve our ability to deliver best-in-class products, while reducing our impact on the environment in communities around the world.

Past President of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and OSI’s Chief Sustainability Officer Nicole Johnson-Hoffman was interviewed by David Abel from Harvard Business School’s Climate Rising Podcast on the topic “Making the Food of the Future.” During the discussion, Nicole and David spoke about the main challenges facing the industry, OSI’s partner companies and how to make the industry more sustainable.


When asked to describe the culture at OSI, the first word that comes to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sheldon Lavin’s mind is “family.” Fostering this culture means that both safety and development are critical components for the well-being of OSI’s workforce and the company’s success. It also means ensuring that the future environment continues to be a better one to work and live in than today. These main tenets of OSI’s culture have helped the company receive distinctive recognition by the British Safety Council for the thirteenth time.
 
This past November, OSI Food Solutions UK again won the prestigious Sword of Honour award from the British Safety Council for its excellence in the management of health and safety risks at work. The company, OSI Food Solutions UK, based in Scunthorpe North Lincolnshire, was one of only 84 organizations worldwide that achieved a Sword of Honour.

The 2019 recognition marks the fifth year OSI Food Solutions UK has achieved a Sword of Honour award.

Sustainability Highlights from Asia Pacific
OSI makes it a priority to follow advanced international concepts, including best practices in animal welfare, food safety and social responsibility. Our development of activities such as these is what makes us a best-in-class operation.

Below are a few of OSI's sustainability highlights from our facilities
in Asia Pacific in 2019.
Reducing Energy Consumption
OSI China’s Rushan plant was able to record significant energy savings by conducting a thermal heat recovery project.

By re-circulating the energy to heat the water to use for equipment cleaning, the plant was able to both reduce the daily heating energy consumption of cleaning water and shorten the operation time of the boiler.
Protecting the Environment
OSI China's Hebei plant recently set up a pollution control task force to implement new techniques in wastewater management.

Already the innovations are easily hitting the government’s optimal environmental standard while also reducing costs and improving on environmental impacts.
Training on Animal Welfare and Food Safety
In September 2019, members of OSI’s Rushan plant team visited Shanxi Province in China to meet with government and local farmers and provided an interactive training on animal welfare and food safety.

The training was helpful in strengthening local efforts on poverty alleviation.
Conducting Social Responsibility Audits
OSI has set up internal processes and work with third party auditors to verify that the company is accomplishing sustainability priorities across all facilities in Asia Pacific and around the world.

These audits help to highlight areas of improvement, so facilities are keeping up with any changes to laws, implementing best practices and continuing to drive for improved outcomes.