Lerøy hailed as climate champion – again

The Lerøy Seafood group has been named a climate champion, for the second year in succession, by the consulting company PwC.

PwC published its annual Climate Index for Norway this week and Lerøy, which is part owner of Scottish Sea Farms, has again come out top among a number of Norwegian companies in terms of its success in cutting back on carbon emissions.

Others include Mowi and SalMar, two other leading salmon farming businesses along with the aquafeed company Skretting.

Lerøy CEO Henning Beltestad  said: “We are proud and grateful for this award. This shows that we as a company are on the right course in our important climate work.

“Seafood is a climate-friendly protein, and Lerøy has great ambitions for it to become an even more climate-friendly alternative in the years to come.”

Anne Hilde Midttveit, Head of  environment, social governance (ESG) and quality at the company, added: “We take our climate responsibility very seriously, and we work continuously to cut climate emissions.

“Our vision is to become the leading and most profitable global supplier of sustainable, quality seafood by 2025. Every day, our employees work together to reduce our footprint on the environment in all our operations, and at all stages throughout the value chain.”

The climate index is an annual overview on the  climate work carried out by  Norway’s 100 largest companies.

CEO Beltestad said: “We in Lerøy will take our share of the responsibility to operate in a climate-friendly and sustainable manner.

“The group has set demanding targets with regard to climate emissions, so it is very important that we are at the forefront of innovative technology and use it where possible.”

He said that controlling the entire value chain gives Lerøy a unique starting point for building the most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood.

Overall, however, PwC also reports that too many of Norway’s leading companies are failing to make significant progress in cutting emissions in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Hanne Løvstad, partner and Head of Sustainability and Climate Services at PwC, said: “The companies are starting to get a good overview of their climate impact, but we must ensure that they also have the necessary implementation power to cut emissions. It is not enough to be good at reporting.”