Sustainable milk production
Sustainability
Create value
Dairy in a sustainable, profitable and enjoyable way
At Lely, we are on a journey to help farmers meet their needs and realise the potential of dairy in a sustainable, profitable and enjoyable way. This has been our driving force since 1948. We want to accelerate change and drive progress. We are farming innovators.
Milk and dairy products are among the most nutritious foods in the world. They contain high-quality protein and are excellent sources of vitamins and minerals. With a growing world population and an increase in wealth and disposable income, the demand for animal protein is expected to increase.
We believe in the potential of dairy as a sustainable source of protein since cows can convert low-value proteins such as grass into high-value proteins. To secure this potential in the future, the dairy sector needs to address several major environmental and societal challenges. Some of the sector’s biggest challenges include reducing its climate impact, further improving animal welfare and increasing transparency about how and where its dairy products are made.
Our journey
Sustainable milk production
We take responsibility and are motivated to address these challenges by utilising our strengths to create value throughout the dairy chain. Since day one, these strengths have been at the centre of everything we do: create innovative solutions that help our customers excel in sustainable milk production to feed the world. We have reached many milestones and are confident we have a positive impact on the lives of our stakeholders.
To meet the upcoming challenges facing the dairy sector, we work on realising our vision for sustainable, profitable and enjoyable dairy farming. We’ve also created a sustainability plan that starts with ourselves and focuses on creating value in close collaboration with our supply chain partners – both upstream and downstream, from our suppliers to our customers. Every action and interaction contributes to making our mission a reality.
How we see the future of farming
Bright Farming
As farming innovators, we want to contribute to a bright future for dairy farmers all around the world. We are driven to understand our customers’ needs so we can develop and deliver solutions that fit their needs.
Bright farming is farming at its best: sustainable, profitable and enjoyable for both farmer and cow. It takes everything that matters into account: the environment, soil health and biodiversity, cost efficiency, consumer preferences and, most importantly, the comfort and health of the cows and farmers who give it their all every day.
Bright Business
Our business activities form the basis of our sustainability journey. We strive to run our business responsibly and offer a great workplace for our people and the next generation of professionals.
Taking responsibility for our environmental and climate impact is an obvious requirement for doing business today and tomorrow. We want to be a responsible business and use our impact to do good. In recent years, we started taking steps to determine where we need to take action to make our business operations more sustainable.
Circular projects
Sustainability stories
Lely strives towards circular dairy farming. The same ambition is in place for our own products and services. To set a good example we are raising the bar in sustainability: a program has been started in which Lely commits to be carbon neutral in its own operations by 2030. We bundled initiatives from different departments and expertise to create a series called Sustainability Stories. With these stories we showcase our sustainable and circular projects.
Sustainability as design principle
Lely Campus
The Lely Campus – our headquarters – is located in Maassluis, the Netherlands. It was opened on 30 January 2014 by HRH Queen Máxima. Already after a few years, it became clear that the Lely Campus was too small to cater for growth in both production as well as employees. Therefore, the Lely Campus was doubled in size. Both the production facility as well as well the office space. Our renewed office was opened by HRH King Willem Alexander on 30 June 2022.
Since the opening of the Lely Campus in 2014, the production facility and our headquarters have been housed under one roof. Sustainability and innovation were the guiding principles during the development and construction of the complex. The building is BREAAM outstanding certified, making it one of the topmost sustainable offices in Europe. In addition, it is also a SMART building: it is full of sensors that collect data about the use of the building, which helps to use and maintain the building more efficiently.
Our plan
Sustainable and responsible business
The launch of our sustainability plan adds two things to our strategy:
- A specific focus on the way we do business and run our operations to become a more sustainable company every day.
- Clear and transparent qualitative & quantitative targets to communicate our direction and progress, holding us accountable for our commitments.
An important goal within our plan is to take our stakeholders along in this journey to realise our ambitions together.
With the launch of our sustainability plan, we have embarked on a journey towards becoming a more sustainable and responsible business. We are committed to continuously work on setting quantitative goals and ambitions and find the right tools to measure our progress and hold ourselves accountable. We do this for our own business, but also to make as big an impact as possible on farms and the dairy sector.
More about Lely
Farmers all over the world make choices about how they set up and run their farms. Every day, we help them make the best choices for themselves and their farms. We do this by providing advice and innovative solutions that contribute to efficient farm management. For sustainable milk and meat production. Present and future.