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Sustainable from the very start
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At Darling Ingredients, sustainability is more than a set of goals. It’s core to our business. As a global leader in upcycling resources, we produce valuable products while helping make global supply chains more circular.
Our approach
Nature wastes nothing, and we strive to do the same. By maximizing resources, helping reduce landfill and minimizing emissions on a global scale, we’re making lives better and helping entire industries become less wasteful and more sustainable.
Sustainability
Overview
2025 Highlights
We emitted fewer greenhouse gases and made significant improvements in safety performance, all while processing a significant share of the world’s animal by-products and returning more than 11 billion gallons of water to the environment. We’re living proof that sustainability and growth can go hand in hand.
Impact
Greenhouse gas emissions reduced
Growing our business, not our footprint.
Across the globe, we’re advancing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction strategies and continuing to innovate to find low-carbon solutions. We’re also driving progress toward our goal of reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42% by 2030 and working toward net zero by 2050.
-5%
since 2023
Even as we have grown the company, we have driven down our greenhouse gas emissions over the last two years, making progress toward our science-based target.
Impact
Returning more water than we use
Annual water contribution
Our rendering process recovers water from raw materials and returns it, treated, to the environment. Globally, we consistently return more water than we consume, making us net water-positive across our core operations.
Read more11billion
gallons of water returned annually
Between 50–60% of our raw material consists of water, which we treat and return to the environment.
Impact
Material processing increased worldwide
Bringing circularity to the value chain
We transform what would otherwise go to waste to create ingredients that improve lives, feed animals and fuel a lower-carbon world.
Read more15%
of the world’s animal by-products
In 2025, we processed more than 15 million metric tons of raw material. This upcycling of by-products provides a vital service to the world’s animal agriculture industry.
Impact
Workplace safety improved
Safety is a mindset embedded in our operations—across our 260 locations and in the daily actions of more than 15,000 employees worldwide.
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The mission behind our mission
The strength of our business depends on the strength of our workforce, which is why we focus on safety, inclusion and ongoing development across our global operations. We were proud to see our Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR) drop for the second year in a row.
Read more50%+
lower lost-time injury rate
In two years, our rate of lost-time injuries has been cut by more than fifty percent, reflecting our strong commitment to safety improvement.
Process
Transforming resources into high-value ingredients
Our company is built on a simple but powerful idea: what others often view as discards, we see as a source of value. Across the globe, we transform by-products from the food and animal agriculture industries into essential ingredients and clean energy solutions that serve growing markets. This model reduces waste and creates scalable revenue streams, strengthens supply chains and positions our business to capitalize on increasing demand for resource efficiency.
Our approach
Upcycling for the highest value
The 350+ ingredients we produce are created from natural materials that others often view as waste. As a global leader in circularity, we are proof that sustainability and profitability can go hand-in-hand.
Collect
We collect materials from the animal agriculture and food industries, helping these industries be more sustainable by providing an alternative to landfilling and incineration.
Process
We separate the materials into fats and proteins, and also extract water — treating and returning more water back to the environment than we use.
Create
We create the highest value for our fats and proteins, which go on to nourish people, feed animals and crops, and fuel the world with renewable energy.
Read more
Spotlights on our sustainability efforts
3 aug. 2026
At our rendering facility in Dublin, Georgia, we are capturing methane from wastewater treatment and selling it back to the local Municipal Gas Authority as renewable natural gas.
3 aug. 2026
Through our partnership with Chick-fil-A, we generated approximately 1.1 million gallons of renewable diesel from used cooking oil from more than 2,000 Chick-fil-A restaurants.
3 aug. 2026
In 2025, we continued to build momentum around our “Everyone, Every Day” campaign, reinforcing safety as a shared responsibility across all roles and locations.