July 2021: During 2020 Salmones Camanchaca strengthened community work with its neighbors

Next year, Salmones Camanchaca will power almost all of its freshwater facilities using renewable energy instead of diesel. Thus meeting the milestones in its 2025 strategy

Salmones Camanchaca strengthened its local community engagement in 2020, through initiatives such as Sustainable Schools, the COVID-19 Fund and by promoting local employment. It arranged over 140 activities in over 10 local communities.

The post-pandemic scenario is opening up and the lessons learned by the industry during 2020 mean that the challenges facing the salmon industry in Chile are intrinsically related to sustainably developing how it operates. This industry generally accepts the challenge of continually improving its productive processes, while mitigating its impact on the environment through innovation and new technologies.

Manuel Arriagada is CEO of Salmones Camanchaca, a leading player in the industry, and after analyzing this context he explained that “the company will continue to implement its Sustainability Strategy, as this is our roadmap going forward. Our mission is to be a low-cost sustainable producer, with potential to grow and create value by controlling the value chain through flexible product and marketing strategies. Our challenges are to achieve 50% ASC certified production by 2021, reduce antibiotic use by 50% by 2025, become carbon neutral by 2025, and to add value within our local communities.”

First carbon neutral salmon company. The company prepared a roadmap to achieve carbon neutrality in its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2025, which is a voluntary commitment that it announced a couple of years ago. “We signed an electricity contract with Colbún, which will reduce our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 12% compared to 2018,” added Manuel Arriagada, the CEO. Simultaneously, the company began evaluating a forestry and land management project at the beginning of the year at a 1,000-hectare estate owned by the company, which will increase its carbon capture potential and offset its emissions.

Community engagement. During 2020 Salmones Camanchaca progressed and consolidated its sustainability roadmap based on the five strategic pillars, which are healthy and nutritious food, healthy ecosystems, thriving communities, meaningful employment and a profitable and responsible business.

Local community engagement plays a fundamental role that has been complicated by the pandemic. “Last year, we had to change our plan due to the pandemic, but we made significant progress with our community engagement strategy. We arranged over 140 activities in over ten local communities. Social investment in “Sustainable Schools”.
We focused on providing support to principals, teachers and families during 2020, to ensure that their children’s education could continue during the pandemic.

We implemented a formal channel for inquiries, complaints and suggestions in our local communities, which follows the associated global best practice. Also we delivered 962 food boxes to families in eight villages in the Eighth and Tenth Regions. We redoubled our support for employees to guarantee their health, safety and peace of mind. We performed over 12,000 COVID-19 preventive tests and implemented a telemedicine program to address the inquiries and concerns raised by each employee’s family group. We contributed to a $2 billion fund that provided infection protection supplies and over 100 pieces of critical equipment for hospitals, including clinical beds, ambulances, X-ray equipment and vital signs monitoring equipment,” concluded Mr. Arriagada.