Monsanto (Legacy Bayer AG) — Ethics Grade F

Monsanto (Legacy Bayer AG) receives an overall ethics grade of F (15/100) on CancelCo's corporate accountability database. Sector: Agriculture. Market cap: Large Cap.

Category scores

• labor: 40
• privacy: 50
• consumer: 5
• environment: 10
• humanRights: 20

Documented incidents (3)

• Roundup Cancer Settlement (high, 2020) — Bayer agreed to pay nearly $10 billion to settle thousands of claims that Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller caused non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Juries found the company failed to warn users of risks.
• PCB Water Pollution (high, 2023) — Juries awarded hundreds of millions in damages to schools and cities for toxic PCB contamination caused by legacy Monsanto manufacturing. The chemicals are known to persist in the environment for decades.
• Dicamba Herbicide Damage (medium, 2020) — A federal court found that Monsanto and BASF were responsible for damage to peach orchards caused by their dicamba herbicide drifting from neighboring farms. The company was accused of rushing the product to market.

Documented good deeds

• Smallholder Farming Support — Bayer committed to supporting 100 million smallholder farmers in developing regions by providing access to sustainable agricultural products and training.

Ethical alternatives

• Corteva Agriscience — Fewer recent mass-tort settlements regarding legacy environmental toxicity compared to Bayer.