Clean energy, green forests – Aviagen Brazil lives its sustainability commitment
In Latin America, our teams are passionate about protecting the environment, caring for our birds, and contributing to a more resilient food system.
In this article we shine the spotlight on Aviagen Brazil, a true sustainability champion. From forest conservation and clean energy to smarter waste and wastewater management, you’ll see firsthand how they put sustainability into action.
Conserving forests to enhance sustainability
Across Aviagen-owned sites in Brazil, more than 2,600 hectares (over 6,400 acres) of forests featuring native and exotic trees, provide both a natural wildlife habitat and a protective buffer.The benefits go far beyond biosecurity. These trees also store carbon, making a real impact on climate action. So far, they’ve created a carbon stock of over 544,000 tons of CO₂ equivalent considering the cumulative woody biomass above the ground from 2000 to 2021. The forests also play a vital role in conserving soil and water, regulating local climate and supporting wildlife from the Mata Atlântica and Cerrado biomes.
A good example of forest conservation is our Great Grandparent (GGP) farm in Redenção da Serra, São Paulo, where we’ve brought together two critical priorities – sustainability and food security.
This initiative shows how environmental stewardship and food security can work hand in hand – for today and the future.
Driving sustainability with ethanol
Transportation is another area where we’re making meaningful changes. Since April 2023, all our company fleet vehicles in Brazil have run exclusively on ethanol – a renewable, lower-carbon fuel made from sugar cane.
Although our vehicles have been equipped with flex-fuel engines for years, we recently made the decision to go all in. Ethanol offers a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels and supports Brazil’s biofuel economy.
The results speak for themselves. Between January 2022 and October 2024, this change helped prevent 428 tons of CO₂ equivalent emissions – showing that even small changes can lead to big sustainability wins.
Expanding our solar footprint
In 2024, we expanded our solar energy initiatives across multiple locations in Brazil, including our Uberaba farm and hatchery, and farms in Itirapina and Sarutaia. We invested over 7.1 million Brazilian Reais (~$1.2 million USD / ~€1.1 million EUR) into solar infrastructure across these operations.
This investment helps ensure our energy use is both sustainable and aligned with our long-term environmental goals.
Smarter wastewater and solid waste management solutions
Clean water is essential – for our birds, our farms, and the planet. That’s why we’ve introduced simple yet effective wastewater treatment systems at our Sarutaia and Santo Antonio da Alegria farms.
These systems allow us to store and gradually treat water used during house cleaning and day-to-day operations, eliminating the need for costly third-party treatment and reducing our impact on local ecosystems.
At our Rio Claro hatchery, we’ve also upgraded waste handling – turning hatchery by-product into a certified organic fertilizer produced by a third-party company. This change not only improves traceability and environmental compliance, but also transforms waste into something useful while promoting circular sustainability.
Local commitment, global impact
Every project at Aviagen Brazil reflects our guiding principle that sustainability should be practical, locally inspired, and always evolving. From conserving forests and installing solar panels to switching to cleaner fuels and rethinking wastewater and solid waste management, we’re working to build a stronger, more sustainable future – for poultry producers, consumers and the world.
Please link to our Sustainability page for more information on our sustainability programs.