Our ESG strategy

Focus on 4 key areas linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

At Biotalys, sustainability is at the heart of our commitment to a safer and healthier food supply and a be er planet. To further develop and implement our ESG strategy, the Company organized a multi-stakeholder survey in the course of 2022. The survey topics related to Biotalys’ mission and values as well as our ambition within the Food and Ag industry. Based on the outcome of the survey, we defined four key areas on which we want to focus as a company now and in the future: Food waste and loss, Environmental product impact, Human capital and Innovation management. In 2023, we will further develop our ESG strategy in depth by defining and measuring specific metrics.

We linked our four ESG priorities to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These SDGs were adopted by all UN Member States in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and improve the lives and prospects of all people globally.20

Food Waste And Loss

Each year, an estimated one-third of all food produced ends up ro ing in the bins of consumers and retailers or spoiling due to poor transportation and harvesting practices. The United Nations wants, by 2030, to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.21 The Biotalys AGROBODY Foundry platform is designed to enhance the global food supply chain’s e iciency and sustainability by identifying and developing innovative, safe food protection products both for pre- and post-harvest protection purposes.

Environmental Product Impact

The UN is also advocating, among other things, the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, consistent with agreed international frameworks, and a significant reduction of their release into the air, water and soil to minimize their harmful impacts on human health and the environment. The protein-based biocontrols we are developing are produced in a more environmentally friendly way and are a safe and healthy alternative to conventional chemical crop protection products. This also helps to reduce chemical residues in our soils and on our food.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are a set of standards for a company’s behavior used by investors to screen potential investments and by other organisations to rate performance on these criteria.

• E. Environmental criteria consider how a company safeguards the environment, including policies addressing climate change.

• S. Social criteria examine how it manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates.

• G. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, remuneration, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights.

A third of the world’s food is wasted, yet 821 million people are undernourished. Greater agricultural productivity and sustainable food production are crucial to easing the threat of hunger. By 2030, the UN therefore aims to: ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and output; help maintain ecosystems; strengthen adaptability to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding, and other disasters; and progressively improve land and soil quality.22 In addition, the production of sufficient and healthy food contributes to good health and wellbeing of both consumers and growers.23 The UN Food and Agriculture Organization also urges countries to help smallholder farmers increase food output.

Each of our pipeline products contributes to protecting crops and food, thereby aiming to reduce food waste and hunger while ensuring healthy lives. The BioFun-7 program, for example, aims to develop protein-based biofungicides that can control leaf spot disease, a devastating disease of cowpea and other legumes that can cut smallholder growers’ output by up to 40%. This program is supported by a multi-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Another UN priority is an urgent and significant action to stem the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity, and, by 2030, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species.24 Our AGROBODY biocontrols are based on proteins. These are biodegradable by nature and are fine-tuned in our R&D for maximum e icacy before they naturally degrade into their amino acid building blocks. They are a potential source of nutrients for plants and micro-organisms, while remaining stable in their original formulated state. Our products hereby help protect the ecosystem.

Human Capital

By 2030, the UN wants to substantially increase the number of people who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.25

At Biotalys, we want to a ract and retain talent. We believe it is important to invest in our people. We want our people to thrive and receive training and support as needed. For example, we are working on support for our team leads, who o en have to guide young people in their first steps into the work field. We also make e orts to protect the work-life balance of our employees.

Human capital is also about equality, diversity and inclusion. One of the UN goals is to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls and to ensure women’s full and e ective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decisionmaking.26 Biotalys is building a diverse team in all senses of the word at all levels, including at the decisionmaking level.

Innovation Management

Innovation is at the core of what we do as a company. By bringing innovative biological solutions to the growers we contribute to the UN goal of making industries more innovative and sustainable, hereby increasing the adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies in agriculture.27

Innovation management is also about bringing inno vation in a structured way. In 2022, for instance, we set up a Science Advisory Commi brings together various key industry experts who can advise our teams. We are also reviewing several of our working methods to make improvements where necessary. An example of this is the recent optimization of our stage gate process for product innovation.

Last year, Biotalys outlined its ESG strategy. The concept approved by the Board of Directors is now being fleshed out with concrete goals and metrics. Eva Van Hende, Head of Regulatory and Sustainability, is one of the project leaders. “But initiatives are also coming from the workplace to make the Company more sustainable,” she says proudly.

For Eva Van Hende, who’s been with Biotalys since March 2022, sustainability is a way of life. “From a young age I have been concerned with nature and the climate, hence my studies in bio-engineering,” she says. “Being able to work on sustainability at Biotalys was an added bonus for me to start here. Moreover, agriculture is close to my heart. Food is priority number one in the world and will remain so in the future. A more sustainable agriculture is therefore essential.”

Next step in sustainability

The core focus of Biotalys is already centered on sustainability. “Nearly thirty percent of our food is lost during production and at the consumer’s home. We want to develop products that prevent food waste and leave no chemical residues on the crops and in the soil. By working with proteins that are biodegradable, we automatically meet these conditions,” Van Hende explains.

In elaborating its ESG strategy, Biotalys is now taking the next step. “Together with our key stakeholders, we have determined a number of topics that set us apart. We are already scoring well on some fronts, such as diversity in the workplace, but some elements can definitely be improved. By naming them now, we express our ambition to take action,” Van Hende clarifies. “Together with my colleagues, we will now a ach concrete figures to these objectives for the three pillars of Environment, Social and Governance. And we will then present them to our Board of Directors.”

Biotalys’ leading investors are o en required to do non-financial reporting and have long been requesting ESG-related information. “We obviously want to show our investors that we are rightfully part of their portfolio, but that is certainly not our only reason. We are not developing a strategy because we have to, but simply because it is part of who we are. We would like to be a pioneer in the ESG story and pave the way for the entire sector,” Van Hende explains.

Colleagues with impact

Management and the Board thus strongly support elevating Biotalys’ profile on sustainability. Van Hende sees this as crucial. But equally important to her is the commitment of the employees themselves. “Last spring I organized a sustainability brainstorm, from which five working groups emerged,” she says enthusiastically. “Each group works on a particular theme, such as mobility, well-being at work, or sustainability in the lab. With the leaders within each team, we meet monthly and discuss each other’s ideas. The intention was for each team to launch one proposal in 2022, but everyone already came up with several plans,” says a proud Van Hende, who herself leads the mobility working group.

Van Hende says such commitment is not coincidental. “You notice that people who work here are very involved with sustainability and the environment. We have quite a few vegetarians in the ranks and many people bike to work.” But the Company itself also deserves credit. “Recently, electric charging stations and an additional bike storage came. Moreover, the management encourages us to be innovative with sustainability and to take our own initiatives. Even as an individual, you have the feeling you can really make a di erence,” she concludes.