Our Pledge

SThe Pledge evolved from long-standing commitments to safety, environmental protection, customer service, first-class research, and product stewardship that had served as hallmarks of our work for many years. And it addressed what stakeholders, including our own people, said they wanted to see in the way we operated as an agricultural leader. We listened, we took their counsel seriously, and we continue to build our culture on those values. After five years, the Pledge is helping us to convert values to actions and results, and to make clear who we are and what we champion.

Over these five years, we've grown as a company, not only in numbers of products but also in ways that put our values to work every day. We continue to squeeze the waste out of our manufacturing operations, making our processes more efficient and cleaner. We've responded to climatic disasters in our global communities, from tsunamis and hurricanes to earthquakes, through contributions of people, products, and money.

But it is not only the big actions that define us. It is also the thousands of daily decisions our employees make as they do their jobs: how they involve people in dialogue on issues that may affect them, how they seek out opportunities to share information and expertise where they think they can help. Simply put, it is about how we apply our values to our work..

We also want to work with development organizations to share our expertise in ways that result in better economic opportunity for those that need them most.

It is critical for us to do these things well over the next five years and beyond. We intend to do them with integrity, applying our values and listening closely to our advisory councils and our many stakeholders around the world. In many ways, we've only just begun the work of the Pledge.