Blackmores has announced the completion of the refinancing of its existing loan facilities, including $75 million linked to sustainability targets.
The new banking agreement is financed by Blackmores Limited’s existing lending partners of Westpac, HSBC, Bank of China and NAB.
Under the agreement, Blackmores will be rewarded for achieving ambitious emissions reductions targets, including scope one, scope two and measured scope three emissions, as well as meeting milestones to progress an ethical supply chain.
Alastair Symington, CEO, Blackmores Group, said the indicators in the loan are additional to Blackmores’ existing sustainability targets, which the Group will continue to progress.
“Blackmores committed to an ambitious target to decarbonise our business to reach Net Zero Emissions by 2030 and we made strong progress in the first year by addressing a quarter of emissions from our manufacturing facility.
“Our new lending agreement further incentivises Blackmores to achieve absolute emissions reduction milestones sooner and ensures that we are accountable for delivery of our most material sustainability goals.
“Taking climate action helps protect our precious natural resources to ensure a more resilient supply chain. But equally important is to address the risk of exploitation, so we have clear indicators to deepen our transparency to understand human rights so that climate resilience and an ethical supply chain continue to be a shared focus.”
The targets under the new agreement have been independently assessed by Ernst & Young to ensure they are both meaningful and ambitious, meeting the Sustainability Linked Loan Principles and determining that the emissions reduction pathway reflected exceeds guidance provided by the Science Based Targets Initiative for a 1.5 degree scenario.
Sally Townsend, Head of Sustainability, Blackmores Group, said, that Blackmores has had a commitment to sustainability embedded into its values for 90 years.
“Our founder Maurice Blackmore knew that you can’t have healthy people without a healthy planet,” she said.
“It’s a privilege to have a culture aligned to our sustainability vision, but our progress depends on how deeply we embed these goals into our organisation so that every member of our team is working together to address our global challenges. Increasing accountability for our sustainability goals across the business will support achievement of them.”
Supporting Blackmores with this initiative were HSBC and Westpac acting as Joint Sustainability Coordinators and Allens Linklaters as legal advisors.
Blackmores Group commitment to sustainability also extends into its CEO, Symington, recently joining the Australian Climate Leader’s Coalition. Symington joins an inspiring cohort of 44 cross-sectoral Australian corporate CEOs committed to using their influence to drive climate action. Together their businesses generate more than $300 billion in revenue, employ more than 644,000 people and report 111.1Mt of emissions.
Australian Climate Leader’s Coalition will progress a Roadmap to 2030 that was launched at COP26 in Glasgow to support a transition to a low carbon future.
Blackmores was founded by visionary naturopath Maurice Blackmore in 1932 with a vision to connect people and pets to the healing power of nature by combining a knowledge of nature and science to deliver quality health solutions.
Blackmores’ high quality, evidence-based range of brands includes Blackmores, Australia’s number one natural health brand; BioCeuticals, Australia’s leading practitioner range; PAW by Blackmores, natural health products for pets; and Impromy, a pharmacy-based weight management program developed in collaboration with CSIRO.