General Mills released its 2026 Global Responsibility Report detailing environmental and social progress across Food, Planet and People priority areas during fiscal year 2025, which ran from May 27, 2024, through May 25, 2025. The report marks the company’s 56th consecutive year of environmental and social impact reporting.
The food company achieved zero waste to landfill across wholly owned manufacturing facilities globally, meeting a commitment established in 2016 by ensuring all waste is recycled, reused, or recovered for energy. General Mills also advanced regenerative agriculture programs to more than 800,000 acres and reduced total value chain greenhouse gas emissions by 14% from its 2020 baseline.
“For 160 years, we’ve been making food the world loves, while standing for good,” said Jeff Harmening, chairman and CEO of General Mills. “We are proudly leading the way in strengthening communities and investing to support a healthy planet. I’m energized by our accomplishments and steadfastly committed to creating a lasting, positive future for us all.”
Zero waste to landfill achievement
General Mills completed its zero-waste-to-landfill goal established in 2016, ensuring all waste generated at wholly owned manufacturing facilities worldwide avoids landfill disposal through recycling, reuse, or energy recovery pathways. The milestone represents systematic infrastructure changes across the company’s global manufacturing footprint.
Zero-waste-to-landfill programs require facilities to identify waste streams, establish sorting and separation protocols, build relationships with recycling processors and waste-to-energy facilities, and track diversion rates to verify no materials reach landfills. The achievement eliminates methane generation from organic waste decomposition while recovering value from materials previously disposed.
The commitment covered all manufacturing facilities under full company ownership, establishing operational standards for waste management that prioritize circular economy approaches over linear disposal pathways.
Regenerative agriculture expansion
More than 800,000 acres are now engaged in General Mills’ regenerative agriculture programs, representing over three-quarters progress toward the company’s 2030 commitment. Regenerative agriculture practices aim to restore soil health, increase biodiversity, improve water cycles, and enhance ecosystem resilience while maintaining agricultural productivity.
Common regenerative practices include cover cropping, reduced or no-till cultivation, diverse crop rotations, integration of livestock, and minimized synthetic inputs. These approaches build soil organic matter, sequester atmospheric carbon, reduce erosion, improve water infiltration and retention, and support beneficial soil microorganisms and wildlife habitat.
General Mills’ regenerative agriculture investments focus on key ingredient supply chains where the company can drive measurable environmental outcomes while supporting farmer economic viability. The programs provide technical assistance, measurement frameworks, and financial incentives to encourage adoption of regenerative practices across agricultural landscapes supplying the company’s operations.
Greenhouse gas emissions reductions
The company further reduced its total value chain emissions by 14% compared to its 2020 baseline, with a 55% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions over the same period. Scope 1 emissions represent direct emissions from company-owned sources including manufacturing facilities and vehicle fleets, while Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling.
The 55% Scope 1 and 2 reduction reflects substantial progress in operational emissions control through energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy adoption, process optimization, and facility upgrades. The 14% total value chain reduction accounts for Scope 3 emissions across the company’s supply chain, product distribution, and end-of-life disposal.
Packaging circularity progress
95% of General Mills’ packaging was recyclable or reusable by weight in fiscal 2025. The metric reflects company-wide efforts to design packaging using materials with established collection and recycling infrastructure while eliminating components that compromise recyclability.
Recyclable packaging design considerations include material selection, size and format optimization, label and adhesive compatibility with recycling processes, and alignment with regional recycling system capabilities. The company’s packaging portfolio spans diverse materials including paperboard, flexible films, rigid plastics, glass, and metal containers requiring tailored approaches to maximize end-of-life recovery.
The 95% recyclable or reusable figure represents packaging design intent rather than actual recycling rates, which depend on consumer behavior, municipal collection programs, and recycling infrastructure availability varying significantly across geographic markets.
Natural and organic food leadership
General Mills maintained its position as the largest U.S. producer of natural and organic packaged food, with one in 10 North American products certified organic or made with organic ingredients. The company’s organic portfolio spans cereal, snacks, baking products, and other categories under brands including Annie’s, Cascadian Farm, and Lärabar alongside organic options within mainstream brand lines.
Organic certification requires adherence to USDA National Organic Program standards prohibiting synthetic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, ionizing radiation, and sewage sludge in agricultural production. Certified organic products provide consumer choice aligned with preferences for production systems emphasizing environmental stewardship and restricted input use.
Certified color removal progress
General Mills achieved its commitment to remove certified colors from all K-12 school foods ahead of schedule as of March 2026. The company announced in June 2025 plans to eliminate certified colors from U.S. cereals by summer 2026 and from its full U.S. retail portfolio by end of 2027, with progress tracking toward these additional milestones.
Certified colors are synthetic dyes approved by FDA requiring certification for safety and purity. Consumer preferences have increasingly favored foods made without certified colors, prompting reformulation efforts across the food industry to replace synthetic dyes with color from natural sources including fruit and vegetable extracts, spices, and other plant-based alternatives.
Community support and food access
General Mills contributed more than $83 million in food and charitable donations worldwide during fiscal 2025 while enabling more than 7.9 billion meals through philanthropic partners. The company maintained strategic partnership funding for MealConnect, Feeding America’s food recovery platform connecting surplus food with charitable organizations serving food-insecure populations.
Since 2014, MealConnect has recovered over 8.6 billion pounds of food, providing billions of meals to people experiencing food insecurity. The platform reduces food waste while addressing hunger through technology-enabled matching between food donors and hunger relief organizations.
General Mills generated fiscal 2025 net sales of $19 billion with share of non-consolidated joint venture net sales totaling $1 billion. The company’s portfolio includes over 100 brands across 100 countries including Cheerios, Nature Valley, Blue Buffalo, Häagen-Dazs, Old El Paso, Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, and Annie’s.
