Bayer AG (Crop Science Division) — Ethics Grade F

Bayer AG (Crop Science Division) receives an overall ethics grade of F (12/100) on CancelCo's corporate accountability database. Sector: Agriculture. Market cap: Large Cap.

Category scores

• labor: 45
• privacy: 60
• consumer: 5
• environment: 10
• humanRights: 30

Documented incidents (3)

• Roundup Cancer Settlements (high, 2020) — Bayer agreed to pay over $10 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims that its Roundup weedkiller caused non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The company continues to face litigation regarding the safety of glyphosate.
• Dicamba Herbicide Damage (medium, 2020) — A federal jury awarded $265 million to a peach farmer who argued that Bayer and BASF's dicamba herbicide drifted onto his orchards, destroying his crop. The EPA later restricted the use of the chemical due to its tendency to drift.
• PCB Water Contamination (high, 2023) — Bayer-owned Monsanto was ordered to pay $857 million to students and parents at a school in Washington state who were exposed to leaking polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in light fixtures. PCBs were manufactured by Monsanto until 1977.

Documented good deeds

• Smallholder Reach Expansion — Bayer reported reaching 52 million smallholder farmers in low-and-middle-income countries with products and digital tools to improve food security.

Ethical alternatives

• Corteva Agriscience — Corteva maintains better transparent disclosure on chemical safety and has fewer legacy liability issues compared to Bayer-Monsanto.