At a Glance

Our Targets to Be Met by 2030

What we do to help people thrive:

Support 100 million smallholder farmers

By 2030, we will be supporting 100 million smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with products, services and partnerships. We want to enable them to produce enough quality food for themselves and others. Worldwide, there are around 550 million smallholder farmers, which provide up to 80 percent of their countries’ food supply in LMICs. However, many smallholders can barely earn their own living and are vulnerable to climate change.

Support 100 million people in underserved communities with self-care

By 2030, we will be supporting 100 million people in economically or medically underserved communities each year with self-care. At least half the world’s population currently has no access to basic health services, including self-medication products. We want to change this through the availability of appropriate products and education.

Support 100 million women in LMICs with contraception

By 2030, we will be satisfying the need of 100 million women in LMICs for modern contraception each year. According to the United Nations, gender equality will be a decisive factor for the world’s future economic and social development. We want to strengthen the role of women and intensify our efforts in modern family planning.

We Are Also Aiming to …

… increase the availability and affordability of our pharmaceutical products in LMICs. We will pursue programs for fair pricing and affordability for patients.

.… continue our cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) to fight tropical diseases such as African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease, which typically hit the lowest levels of the income pyramid hardest.

We have been actively combating tropical diseases for many years already. For example, we provide two of our active ingredients against African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease, which is prevalent in Latin America, free of charge to the WHO. We also support programs for the control of diseases such as malaria, dengue and the Zika virus which are transmitted by disease vectors such as mosquitoes.

... establish sustainable production and the transition to circular options in our Consumer Health Division to reduce, recycle, reuse and replace.

... support 50 million people in underserved communities annually by 2030 with access to essential vitamins and minerals, from nutritious food to safety net supplementation.

We collaborate with partners to increase impact

Now, more than ever before, progress cannot be achieved without partnerships. As such, we are actively collaborating with NGOs, governments, and other public and private organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Access Accelerated and the Antimicrobial Resistance Action Fund, to extend our reach and impact. Going forward, we will look to broaden and deepen partnerships with like-minded organizations as we pursue our mission.

We Are Reducing Our Ecological Footprint

Without suitable countermeasures, global temperatures will rise by well over 2 degrees Celsius. This will threaten our planet’s ecosystems, jeopardize the health of people, animals and plants, and place the food supply for a growing world population at risk. Bayer is taking broad climate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within our company and along our entire value chain in accordance with the Paris Agreement. At the same time, we are working on drastically reducing the environmental impact of agriculture.

Bayer is committed to mitigating climate change and limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in line with the Paris Agreement. We have set ourselves a science-based target to decarbonize and a net zero target, including our supply chain, for 2050. This means a reduction of absolute greenhouse gas emissions from Scope 1, 2 and 3 by 90% compared to the 2019 base year. The remaining emissions (10%) will be compensated through permanent carbon credits. We are looking to achieve this with an absolute reduction of 42 percent in our emissions (scope 1 and 2) by 2029 compared to the 2019 base year. We have included making our own sites climate-neutral in our Group targets to be met by 2030. For this purpose, we are implementing a range of measures focusing on energy efficiency, energy sources, offsetting and the value chain. Our key levers identified in this context were the switch to renewable electricity, energy efficiency and process optimization, the decarbonization of site infrastructure, and the transition to an electric vehicle fleet. The detailed measures and progress are explained in the Transition & Transformation Plan.

The remaining emissions will be offset by 2030 through the purchase of certificates from verified climate protection projects. At present, we primarily purchase certificates from projects focused on forest conservation and reforestation. In the case of the latter, we assume long‑term CO₂ storage. For our purchases, we have defined specific criteria for sourcing certificates from climate protection projects. When selecting projects, we pay particular attention to ensuring that they enable long‑term CO₂ sequestration (permanence) and that the projects would not take place without the sale of the certificates (additionality). A detailed overview of the supported climate protection projects can be found in the table Project Details in our offsetting approach.

Bayer products and services are also linked to emissions that are generated before and after the company’s activities, for instance in the value chain (Scope 3 emissions). In this case, SBTi has confirmed that Bayer is helping to limit global warming to well below 2 °C. We aim to reduce our Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2029 (compared to the base year 2019). In 2024, the target for reducing Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions has been increased and validated by SBTi. This reduction applies to an extended set of Scope 3 categories of the upstream and downstream value chain, from previous 5 to now 14 categories. Given the complexity of the value chain, the 25 percent reduction in Scope 3 emissions poses a similar challenge to the 42 percent reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Description of the Methodology (PDF, 306 KB)

We Are Reducing …

... the greenhouse gas footprint of crop production.

Currently, the ecological footprint of agriculture accounts for about 22 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. We aim to enable our farming customers to reduce their on-field greenhouse gas emissions per mass unit of crop produced by 30% by 2030 compared to the overall base year emission intensity¹. This applies to the highest greenhouse gas emitting crop systems in the regions Bayer serves with its products.² This includes Bayer helping farmers to use climate-friendly methods, such as reducing plowing and using digital solutions, to reduce CO₂ emissions.

... the environmental impact of plant protection products by 30 percent by 2030. Our innovation pipeline will enable farmers to increase yields on existing farmland. Digitalization will be a powerful lever in this process. Protecting biodiversity is key to our mission and to the future of agriculture..

Bayer will engage in further climate-related and environmental efforts – such as supporting projects to preserve (rain) forests, developing alternatives to artificial fertilizers, and using more environmentally friendly packaging materials throughout the Group.

Here you can read more information about our contribution to environmental protection.

¹Our reduction target refers to an overall base year greenhouse gas intensity that includes the weighted emission intensities of 17 crop-country combinations (CCCs). In 2024, the CCC Australia-Cotton was removed from the scope due to the unavailability of data. Base years are defined individually for each CCC, using data from either harvest year 2021 or 2022 depending on the availability of data. Base years were adjusted in 2024 due to additional data requirements based on an updated GHG calculator methodology and lack of data availability from prior years.
²The CCCs Italy-Corn and Spain-Corn were not selected based on these factors but were additionally included because data were already available.