Yara

Yara Netherlands
Quick Facts
Type	Public
sector	Fertilizer
Headquarters (Benelux Organization)	Vlaardingen, Netherlands
Year of Origin	1929
Emissions (All Scopes)	3,3 Megatons of CO2 (NL, 2020)
NCI assessment	Low
Total Revenue	1.9 billion USD (2021)
Stock Exchange	Bijv. Tokio, Amsterdam
Key People	Michael Schlaug (CEO Yara Sluiskil) Gijsbrecht Gunter (Manager of External Affairs & Communication Yara Sluiskil)
Number of Employees	848 (2021)
Subsidiaries	In the Netherlands, Yara exists of Yara Sluiskil and Yara Vlaardingen.

Yara International ASA, stylized as Yara, is a wellknown international company active in the business of fertilizers. The focus of this page is on Yara Sluiskil, a subsidiary of Yara in the Netherlands. Where accessible, data from this subsidiary is used. Where no information is available or information from the mothercompany is more relevant, this information is used.

Yara

The beginnings of Yara go back to 1905 in Norway. Currently Yara operates an integrated business model with around 17,800 employees and operations in over 60 countries. Yara claims to be the world’s leading fertilizer company and a provider of environmental solutions. Yara shares are traded at the Oslo Stock Exchange. Norwegian state owns most of the shares (36.2%). Norwegian private partners own 22.6%. The rest of the shares are primarily US or UK owned. Yara is headquartered in Oslo, Norway. In the Netherlands, Yara has plant in Sluiskil and a location in Vlaardingen.

Yara Sluiskil

In 1929 the beginnings of Yara Sluiskil were established as Compagnie Neérlandaise de l'Azote (CNA). This name changed to Nederlandse Stikstof Maatschappij (NSM) in the 60s. In 1979, the mothercompany acquired Yara Sluiskil, although the company only got this name since 2004. In 2015, Yara Sluiskil took up about 15% of the total production volume of the entire Yara company. Yara Sluiskil is the largest factory of articifial fertilizer in Northern Europe. Yara Sluiskil employs 723 people and in 2020 stated to process about 5 million tonnes of product on a yearly basis. Yara claims to have reduced its CO₂ emission from 2005 to 2015 by 60% while production increases by 1.5 million tonnes. According to the 2021 country by country report of Yara, the revenue of Yara Sluiskil was 1596 million USD and the profit before taxes is 105 millions USD.

Company Structure

Yara International

Yara is 50% owner of Yara Pilbara Nitrates Pty Ltd (Australia), 49% owner of Trinidad Nitrogen Co. Litd. (Trinidad) and 68% ownership of Yara Freeport LLC DBA Texas Ammonia (USA). Yara has a non-controlling interest in Yara Dallol (Netherlands).

Yara consists of a Group Executive Board (GEB) and a Board of Directors. The GEB takes charge over the day-to-day management. The responsibility for the day-to-day managements lies with the CEO. The Board of Directors has the overriding responsibility for the managements of the company. The Board also supervises the company's day-to-day management and the more general company's activities. The compositon of the Board varies from 3 till 11 members. Now there are 10, of which 4 are elected by the employees of Yara and the other 6 elected by the shareholders.

Group Executive Board

Name	Function	Remuneration x1000 USD (2021)
Svein Tore Holsether	Chief Executive Officer & President	1648
Lars Røsæg	Deputy CEO	767
Thor Giæver	Chief Financial Officer	280
Mónica Andrés Enríquez	Europe	299
Solveig Hellebust	People, Process and Digitalization	260
Pål Hestad	Global Plants & Operational Excellence	733
Fernanda Lopes Larsen	Africa & Asia	712
Chrystel Monthean	Americas	741
Kristine Ryssdal	General Counsel	691

These numbers exclude share-based remuneration and other benefits.

Board of Directors

Name	Function	Remuneration x1000 USD (2021)
Trond Berger	Chair	90
Kimberley Lein-Mathisen	Vice-chair	47
Rune Bratteberg	Member	54
Håkon Reistad Fure	Member	54
Ragnhild Flesland Høimyr	Member	42
Øystein J. Kostøl	Member	42
Adele Bugge Norman Pran	Member	63
Geir O. Sundbø	Member	50
John Thuestad	Member	53
Brigitte Ringstad Vartdal	Member	50

These number exclude compensation in shares and dividend.

Yara Netherlands

The Yara group consists of 137 subsidiaries. Yara Nederland B.V. is the main parents to 16 of these subsidiaries. Next to that Yara Holding Netherlands B.V. is also registered in the Netherlands. There is very limited information on the directors of the Dutch branches. Michael Schlaug is the general director of Yara Sluiskil. Gijsbrecht Gunter is the manager of external affairs and communicaion for Yara Sluiskil. No other information on the direction of Yara Sluiskil or Yara Netherlands can be found online.

Accountant

Deloitte is the independent auditor of Yara, both the parents company as well as most of the subsidiaries. In the independent auditor report of Deloitte, which is attached to the Annual Report 2021, there is no mentioning of climate-related risks.

Main Activities

Yara is the worlds leading fertilizer company. One of Yara's main ingredients is ammoniak. This is a very high energy-consuming production process.

Government

The state of Norway and several Norwegian pension funds are the main shareholders of Yara International. As far as publicly known, the Dutch government has no direct financial ties to Yara International nor Yara Netherlands. The Dutch government has influence on Yara through the environmental laws in place. The Dutch and European legislators can and already have an impact on Yara's governance through ETS (Emissions Trading System) and complimentary Dutch CO₂ taxation system.

Paris Agreement until Today

Yara International

‘’Planet’’ is weighed for 25% in the performance indicators based on which remuneration of the board executives is decided.

Yara sees opportunities in clean ammonia. Yara wants to be a key player in the hydrogen economy. Yara is a partner in the Science Based Targets initiative

Yara Netherlands

Yara Sluiskil is the largest fertilizer plant in North-western Europe. Their main ingredient is ammoniak, of which the production costs a lot of energy. 70% of the costs of Yara Sluiskil are electricity costs. Due to the high gas prices, Yara had to cut 40% of its production at the end of 2021. This was the case for the plant in the Netherlands as well as in other countries.

Yara Sluiskil has come from 5.8 megaton in 1990 to 3.6 megaton in 2018. 1.4 megaton is reused, so the netto emission is 2.2 megaton. In this line they have halved their emissions since 1990. However, the chemical sector is still one of the largest polluting sectors in the Netherlands. In 2020, the bruto emissions for Yara Sluiskil were 3.3 megatonnes. Critics say Yara had taken the easy steps to get to this reduction. For example by reducing emissions of NO_x. Yara states that a lot of their emissions is reused and can therefore not be accounted to them.

Despite Yara’s slogan ‘’Responsibly feed the world and protect the planet’’ they are high-ranking on multiple lists of large polluters. They are the fourth largest CO₂ emitter in the Netherlands with 2.5 megatonnes, number 13 on NO_x (824,000 kilo), number 2 on N₂O (824,000 kilo) and number 1 for NH₃ (504,000 kilo)(reported in 2019).

Financial Results since 2015

Yara International

Financial situation

Year	Revenue	Profit	Dividend
2015	111.9 billion NOK	8.5 billion NOK	3.6 billion NOK
2016	97.2 billion NOK	6.3 billion NOK	4.1 billion NOK
2017	93.8 billion NOK	4 billion NOK	2.7 billion NOK
2018	13 billion USD	141 million USD	219 million USD
2019	12.9 billion USD	589 million USD	203 million USD
2020	11.7 billion USD	690 million USD	926 million USD
2021	16.6 billion USD	384 million USD	1,215 million USD

Current Emissions

Yara International

In 2021, Yara’s GHG emissions totalled 75.3 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents (CO₂e) for scopes 1, 2, and 3 combined.

Yara makes a distinction between scope 2 location-based and market-based. In the table below, the market-based scope 2 emissions are used. The 2021 GHG emissions for scope 1 and 2 were reported to be 17.5 million tonnes. According to Yara, their scope 1 and 2 emissions have reduced with 5% since 2019. Furthermore, Yara claims to have made good progress for more than a decade in reducing the GHG emissions from their own operations (scope 1 and 2). The numbers however show an increase since 2015. This might also be explainable by increase in production, which makes the numbers difficult to compare.

Scope 3 emissions are divided by Yara in three. The first scope 3 follows category 1 and 3, which consists of the purchased fuels and raw materials. The second scope 3 follows category 4 and 9, which consist of upstream and downstream transportation. Lastly, the third scope 3 is made up of category 11 and stands for the emissions from the use of fertilizer, the product sold by Yara. As seen in the table below, this last scope 3 emissions causes the majority of GHG emissions of Yara: around 62%. Reducing their scope 1 and 2 emissions therefore has a limited impact on the total emissions.

Total emissions since 2015 ( in megatonnes CO₂-eq.)

Year	Scope 1	Scope 2	Scope 3 (cat. 1&3)	Scope 3 (cat. 4&9)	Scope 3 (cat. 11)	Total
2015	12.3	0.4	not reported	not reported	not reported	x
2016	12.4	1.3	7.5	2.5	35.7	59.5
2017	15.1	0.9	11.9	2.7	34.9	65.5
2018	16.6	1	9.1	2.9	40.5	70.1
2019	17.1	1.4	9	2.9	43.8	74.2
2020	16.6	1.1	8.5	2.6	42.3	71.1
2021	16.5	1	8.6	2.6	46.6	75.3

Yara Netherlands

A lot of gas is necessary for the process of making fertilizer. With gas, hydrogen is made, which interacts with nitrogen to ammonia, following the Haver-Boschprocess. At Yara Sluiskil they use 2 billion cubic meters of gas every year. Of this amount, 80 percent is used for the process of making fertilizer. Yara Sluiskil is thus one of the biggest poluters of the Netherlands.

Yara only delivers a graph of their emissions in their Dutch sustainability report. There is no report per scope. Data from 2015 - 2018 is from a government report. Yara International reports emissions per scope, but does not specify per location so no data for Yara Netherlands can be deducted from the annual reports.

Total emissions since 2015 ( in megatonnes CO₂-eq.)

Year	Scope 1	Scope 2	Scope 3	Total
2015	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	3.7
2016	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	3.7
2017	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	3.8
2018	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	3.6
2019	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	3.5
2020	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	3.3
2021	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Climate Policy and Plans

Yara International

Yara's ambition, as reported in their 2021 sustainability report, is to become climate neutral by 2050. The intermediate targets to reach this goal are reducing by 2025 their carbon intensity (emissions in ton CO2e/ton N) by 10% or more relative to 2018, and reducing by 2030 their absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 30% or more relative to 2019. Furthermore, Yara is in the process of defining Science Based Targets for scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in order to have a clear plan on how to deliver on the Paris Agreement. Regarding the high amount of emissions of scope 3, it is crucial that Yara defines targets and plans to reduce these emissions as well.

Yara claims to contribute along two main avenues: reducing greenhouse gas emissions from our own operations and offering and exploring new, sustainable solutions for farmers and food companies as well as for a clean hydrogen and ammonia-based economy.

Yara plans to optimize energy efficiency in ammonia production, as this accounts for 80 percent of direct GHG emissions. Plan is to undertake regular interna land external benchmarking activities, and by carrying out efficiency diagnosis and audits, resulting in systematic improvement actions.

Yara aims to have all major production sites certified to ISO 50001 Energy Management standard by 2022.

Having reduced their GHG emissions by 45% since 2005, Yara claims to be well-positioned to meet the EU 55% reduction target.

Yara Netherlands

According to Gijsbrecht Gunter, manager of external affairs and communicaion, Yara Sluiskil would welcome with open arms an alternative to gas. This would bring back their CO2 emissions and would reduce their dependence on Russian gas.

Yara has developed a climate roadmap to reduce net-emissions from 1.9 megaton (2020) to 0.7 megaton in 2030. Projects in this roadmap are reducing the rest of NO_x emissions, reuse of heat, replacing gas turbines with electrical turbines, differentiating steam and electricity balance in factories, capture and making CO₂ liquid to store in empty gas fields. Yara also wants to use more CO₂ in their endproducts.

The climate roadmap has three main tracks:

• Track 1: Change and renew existing installations (-0.5 megaton)
• Track 2: Carbon capture and Storage (CCS) (-0.7 megaton)
• Track 3: Green Hydrogen (-0.1 megaton)

Yara Sluiskil plans to reduce emissions to zero by 2050.

Yara Sluiskil claims to have reduced their CO₂ footprint by 60% from 2005 to 2015, while increasing production by 1.5 million tonnes. In cooperation with Zeeland Seaports, Yara delivers CO₂ and heat to greenhouses in the proximity. Yara claims to reduce emissions by 0.135 Mtonnes by doing so Current emissions are around 1.9 megatonnes netto, of which 1.4 mtonnes is Carbon Capture and Storage. Bruto GHG emissions are around 3.4 mtonnes.

Yara claims the unrendable top of investment until 2030 is 1.5 billion euro’s. The price of prevented CO₂ emissions per ton would be 60-80 euro’s. Yara claims this is a small price in comparison to for example the price of electrical vehicles. Yara also claims that their production is up to four times as efficient as Chinese producers and therefore they need help to become more sustainable

Due Diligence

Due Diligence

Keep the broader context in mind. Is the company integer when it comes to deforestation, palm oil, biodiversity, human rights etc etc? Be critical in the sources used here.

Scandals and controversies

Yara International is a partner of Belaruskali – one of the largest fertilizer producers in the world, and also one of the largest companies owned by the Belarusian government. Since this partnership presumably funds a dictatorship, Yara has been accused of violating human rights.

Conclusion

The Dutch branch of Yara is part of a large, influential global fertilizing company. The dutch branch of Yara makes up for a fair share of Yara’s total production and the production of fertilizers in general. Profit margins of the dutch production are small, but the mothercompany is financially healthy. Yara has reduces emissions since 1990 with nearly 60%, but is still one of the larger polluters in the Netherlands. Yara relies mainly on technological solutions and reuse of CO₂ to reduce their emissions. The targets are in line with the Paris Agreement. Recent years however emissions only reduced slightly so reasonable effort is needed and expected to reduce emissions further.