Mars Pledges $1 Billion to Fight Climate Change

Great news, you can now feel a little less guilty next time you rip into a candy bar. Mars, the chocolate company behind beloved brands like Snickers, Twix and Skittles, is taking a stand against climate change. The corporation—that made almost $35 billion in sales in 2016 alone—pledged to spend $1 billion of its holdings on the environmental cause. With its "Sustainability in a Generation Plan" Mars, Inc. hopes to reduce its carbon footprint by 60 percent by 2050.

The plan will concentrate on many aspects of the issue including renewable energy with wind-power, food sourcing by seeking ingredients from sustainable producers, and the well-being of the farmers it works with. Mars also started industry coalitions like Livelihoods Fund for Family Farming, which invests in small farms, and Cocoa Action, to work towards sustainable cocoa growth.

Although Mars acknowledges that some governments and other corporations are taking steps towards reducing climate change the company's chief sustainability officer Barry Parkin doesn't think society is getting to the end goal fast enough. "We're trying to go all in here," Parkin told Business Insider.

CEO Grant F. Reid wants other companies to follow Mars' lead. "The engine of global business—its supply chain—is broken, and requires transformational, cross-industry collaboration to fix it," he said in a statement today. He added, "this is a world issue and it requires all actors to work together."

Of course, Mars' pledge deals with moral responsibility and global stewardship, but Reid also recognizes the move as an economic one. "We're a food business, which is based on agriculture so we care a lot about the farmers who supply us around the world. We care about this both on a societal level but also on a business level," he said. Reid also stressed that Mars isn't trying to get political.

Either way, we like the idea that next time we have some M&M's, we could be helping the planet, too.