Environmental Stewardship

Environmental Stewardship

We work to minimize negative impacts created through the mining, processing and transportation of our products.

Performance

The "--" signifies that the indicator was not available or measured for a particular year.

Environment1 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Greenhouse Gases (Direct) Total million tonnes CO2e 3.43 3.49 3.16 3.08 3.44
Intensity (Company-wide)2 tonnes CO2e per tonne of net production 0.43 0.43 0.48 0.38 0.40
Intensity (North American Wholesale Production)2 tonnes CO2e per tonne of net production 0.43 0.43 0.48 0.39 0.41
Captured for enhanced oil recovery tonnes CO2e 185,000 163,000 188,000 264,770 333,233
Environmental Events (Total)3 count 51 34 35 48 25
Ammonia Releases count -- -- -- -- 20
Spills count -- -- -- -- 3
Non-compliances count -- -- -- -- 2
Non-accident Ammonia Releases4 releases/thousand railcar movements 0.59 0.27 0.43 0.35 0.58
Air Emissions5
Criteria Air Contaminants6 tonnes 12,199 11,598 9,825 9,971 9,590
Other Air Emissions tonnes 5,500 4,590 4,249 4,084 4,203
Water Pollutants tonnes 3,287 2,402 2,874 2,997 3,427
Water Use million m3 19.0 22.6 18.7 21.3 21.0
Energy Use
Total7 terajoules 105,422 96,665 90,042 91,548 98,915
Intensity2 GJ/tonne of net production 13.1 11.8 13.6 11.3 11.4
Fines and Penalties8 $ 1,119,928 810,241 830,507 44,729 489,597
Environmental Remediation Liabilities9,10 $ million 117 135 140 125 131
Internal EHS&S Audits11 count 212 186 566 417 517
  1. Covers North American facilities only. Does not include statistics for Retail farm centers for air emissions, water pollutants, water use, and energy use. Nor does it include statistics for our AAT facilities for water use. We estimate that these figures would be insignificant relative to our company totals.
  2. For previous reports we calculated greenhouse gas intensity and energy intensity based on gross production.
  3. Events that exceeded regulatory thresholds in their applicable jurisdiction.
  4. Includes the unintentional release of ammonia while in transit, including loading and dispensing of the product, which is not caused by a derailment, collision or other rail-related accident.
  5. Agrium reports emissions to the Canadian National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) and United States Toxic Release Inventory. Criteria Air Contaminants include CO, NOx, SOx, VOCs and particulates reported under NPRI.
  6. Figures for 2008-2010 are restated here following further data analysis.
  7. Electricity use at our facilities, except Retail, is included in these figures. Almost 95 percent of our energy use is from natural gas. The figures for energy use for 2010 that were published in our previous report have been restated here to reflect more complete tracking.
  8. Fines and penalties settled in a particular year often relate to activities in prior years. Prior to 2010, the total includes all fines for Retail, not just environmental fines.
  9. Calculated on a discounted, inflation-adjusted basis. The figure for 2007 is restated here for consistency.
  10. All financial information prior to 2010 is prepared in accordance with previous Canadian generally accepted accounting principles.
  11. This indicator was incorrectly listed as External EHS&S Audits in our 2009 Sustainability Report.

Associated reports

In addition to our annual sustainability performance reporting, Agrium provides in-depth reports of specific environmental data voluntarily, or as part of our regulatory obligations to other performance reviewing bodies such as the province of Ontario’s Toxics Reduction Strategy and the Carbon Disclosure Project. These reports can be downloaded below:

Date Title Download File
6/20/2012 Toxics Reduction Act Public Annual Report 2011 (0.17 MB)
6/9/2011 Toxics Reduction Act Public Annual Report 2010 (0.18 MB)