Use Polysulphate to Lower Farm Carbon Footprint

As an increasing number of farmers are wanting to, and are being encouraged to, reduce the carbon footprint of their farming activities, we can report that Polysulphate (polyhalite) from our premium crop nutrition collection has a significantly lower carbon footprint than alternatives.

Driving Down Polysulphate’s Carbon Footprint

Polysulphate provides many benefits for crops and farms, including improved crop yield, crop quality, and returns on investment made in crop production. But the benefits go beyond that.

In 2019, Polysulphate’s carbon footprint was revealed it to be significantly lower than similar fertilizers. Since then, we have been working to reduce Polysulphate’s carbon footprint, and the latest calculation by an independent sustainability consultancy shows that these efforts have slashed Polysulphate’s carbon footprint even further. Polysulphate’s carbon footprint is now less than 10% of its previous value.

Multiple Reasons for Choosing this Multi-Nutrient Fertilizer

Along with prolonged multi-nutrient availability and ease of application to a wide range of crops, the low carbon footprint is an additional clear benefit of choosing and using Polysulphate, one ICL’s premium and OMRI-approved products.

A Fertilizer that Measures Up in Many Ways

Calculating a product’s carbon footprint is a complex task, which is why we engaged the services of a specialist company to do the calculations for Polysulphate. Measurements were made of all the processes from the polyhalite mine, where Polysulphate originates, through to storage. The results reveal that the carbon footprint of Polysulphate is lower than other common fertilizers and a fraction of the footprint of, for example, ammonium nitrate.

Reducing Polysulphate’s Carbon Footprint by More than 91%

Polysulphate is a natural mineral fertilizer created by mining, crushing, and screening polyhalite rock. There are no other processes involved. This was the key to Polysulphate’s original, naturally low carbon footprint. But by making a series of significant efficiency improvements at ICL’s polyhalite mine in the UK, we have reduced the carbon footprint of Polysulphate to a fraction of what it was.

Grahame Wallace, ICL UK VP, believes the new carbon footprint figure for Polysulphate reflects the considerable strides taken to improve energy efficiency across the site.

Since the last carbon footprint calculation in 2019, we have introduced numerous changes, including changing to fully renewable electricity in 2023 and removing the combined heat and power plants (CHP).

We’ve also made considerable strides forward in reducing our use of diesel and introduced a range of efficiency improvements across the site and our operational processes.

The achievement of ISO 50001 recognizes the changes made at ICL’s polyhalite mine, which have provided a platform for further reductions in energy consumption and increases in efficiency right across the business.

Crop-Friendly and Environmentally Friendly

The unit of measurement for carbon footprint is kg of carbon dioxide equivalent produced per kg (kg CO₂e per kg) of product. Compared with a wide range of equivalent fertilizers, Polysulphate has the lowest carbon footprint at 0.0029 kg CO₂e per kg of product. Such a low carbon footprint makes Polysulphate stand out as a prime eco-friendly choice for farmers.

Crop productivity and quality are the most well-known major benefits of applying Polysulphate. Now, the added benefit of an even lower carbon footprint is set to make Polysulphate a fertilizer of choice for farmers carrying out carbon counting on their enterprise, looking to lower the carbon footprint of their farm inputs.