Hello, good morning. I'm Ligia Camargo, ESG Executive Manager. It's a pleasure to be here with you today to tell you about our ESG journey. We've organized this event that's going to have the participation of our main executives to tell you about our ESG 2030 plan, our goals, ambitions, and the main initiatives that we have put in place for ESG topics. On the online platform, you can find the chat through which you can submit questions. In the end of the talks, we are going to have a Q&A session. If the questions cannot be answered during the event, our team's going to submit the questions by email. Said that, let me invite Marcos Lutz to start our day. Marcos, please.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for participating.
This is a very important event, a commitment of the company, It's great to have you all here participating virtually. I'm going to start by addressing safety. Safety is a very important topic to this company. It's something dear to my heart and to all managers. It is a great practice of operational quality because if you can avoid in your procedures and operations things that you don't want to happen, such as accidents, you can also avoid waste, additional costs. You can really have better operational quality. Safety, in addition to being essential in itself, it also brings added benefit. We have a very strong commitment of improving our safety indicators, having safer operations in all the businesses and relevantly reducing our safety indicators with part of the commitments of all the companies you are going to hear after me.
A second important topic that I would like to address concerns the transformation that is going to happen in the world, something that is already going on with the energy transition. It brings a number of opportunities, also risks, of course, especially a company that has a number of businesses related with gas and fuels, and that's going to lead to significant changes. If you have such major changes, there are also opportunities connected to them, making adjustment to businesses, and we expect that for the next 20, 30 years, that's going to be a huge transformation to the Brazilian energy matrix. It will also be dependent on what's going on in the world, and we expect the North Hemisphere to go through more relevant radical changes. Based on that, we can build within the strategy of each of our businesses the logic of energy transition.
How is the company going to be positioned for the next 10, 20 years? This is all based on what we expect is going to happen with the Brazilian energy matrix. We see it as opportunity. A company such as Ultrapar and Ultra can allocate capital in addition to its own businesses in things that really can make sense in the long run considering the energy transition. We know the area, we know the industry, and we are familiarized with that. At the same time, Brazil Biofuels, this is a very relevant way of replacing energy, just using the current assets. We can use the current assets to generate cash for a longer period of time and fund future initiatives. It's also important to say that the ESG plan, it's not top-down. It was built at the basis of the company.
It's fully integrated with the strategic plan. Part of it, I have to say that it's almost resultant from strategic planning. It's intertwined with everything we do to add value to generate results to our shareholders, and it's part of the company's strategy. It's not something which was set apart in a ESG department, just aside from the main businesses. This is something relevant, and this is why I'm really confident that the plan will be delivered because it was built by the bases, it will be operated by it, and will be delivered by the three businesses of our company. Speaking of governance, once again, in this company, we always operate based on people. Our strategy is based on people. People strategy is the one that has never changed since the time.
Having the best teams, the most aligned teams, has always proved to be successful in any situation, with energy transition or not, since ancient times. Our focus here is exactly on that. Ultra has this tradition of fully alignment with shareholders, commitment of the management, because in the 1980s, the company started aligning executives and shareholders. It's a very important part of the company which was donated to the executives of that time. The company was a pioneer in a number of governance initiatives. Recently, we have also make a very important renewal, and I've been fully involved in it. We are aligning all the current executives and future one for the long term. We now have this program of granting shares of the company, and we are very proud to align the top management of the company for the long run.
We are going to be here. I am going to be here by 2030 when the time comes to deliver the goals. I'm now going to ask Rodrigo to carry on, who's going to tell us about the role of Ultragaz, which is essential. It's complementary to the role of our businesses. Rodrigo, please.
Good morning. Thank you, Marcos. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here to talk about ESG. As Marcos said, people has a key role in the journey. On this slide, you can see the four main goals that we see for Ultragaz in ESG. Capital allocation, trends as accelerator, boost and challenge for businesses and culture of alignment, transparency and ethics. I'm going to highlight some of these roles. As capital allocation, ESG is considered in all our investments. Our three main businesses are at different levels.
Ipiranga at turnaround, Ultragaz, more mature market, looking for new uses for LPG and energy solutions, and Ultracargo expanding its businesses. Adjust investments and ESG according to the stage and characteristics of each business is our role as capital allocator. In addition, we have to come up with projects that generate value. We are not going to have a strategic strategy that has no return on investment. Thanks to our balance and our scale, we have a number of opportunities, very robust possibilities. Two examples, Stella, which is an electric energy commercialization platform we've acquired 100% by Ultragaz. It started with UVC, our venture capital fund, and then was 100% consolidated. It has led us to this natural acquisition. NEOgás, a leading company in Brazil that distributes CNG, and we have recently completed its full acquisition.
NEOgás in addition to this business of CNG, it is a new platform for distribution of biomethane, great possibilities in Brazil. Tabajara is going to emphasize those two businesses. To close my presentation as a controller of the businesses as defining challenging goals and aligning really all the resources to deliver them, we can give you some examples. We have a stock plan vesting period extended to 10 years, and we've included in the individual targets of all our leaderships, 30% of the goals will be linked to ESG. We have a very long track record of transparency and respect for minority shareholders in Ultra, and we also have the commitment of keep you really updated through ESG indicators in our investor relations website and also in our financial statements.
I'll now like to hand it over to Ligia, who is going to talk about our ESG plan and ESG 2030 goals. Ligia.
Thank you, Rodrigo. Good morning, everyone. I'm really delighted to be here to tell you about our ESG project and thank the dedication of nearly 250 leaders that spent 18 months working so that we could be here today sharing with you our ESG 2030 goals. My task today is to tell you about the goals and the process through which we went to get to these material topics. Material topics are those that can add or protect value of the company. To get to the plan, we've been through 3 stages. First, global macro trends were analyzed and the influence it had. Climate change, technology, innovation, population growth, new consumption patterns.
We've also considered specific business characteristics, the status of each business, ESG maturity, and also their strategic priorities. Of course, we've heard the opinion of different stakeholders, customers, clients, suppliers, investors. We've also heard from regulatory agents, sector organizations and other groups of interest. Based on all of that, we just got in each material topic, and in a bottom-up, top-down approach, we got to our goals. It comprises guidelines for all companies in our holding and also the specificities of each business. They result from the coinciding factors just permeating all our strategies. I'm going to go through all of them and also our commitments for 2030, and then each business will describe practical examples of how these goals are being pursued by different initiatives in the action plans. Health and safety is extremely important for all companies in our group.
A company is more efficient if it's a company that has safety coming first. We want to reduce by 50% the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate, reduce by 70% the Process Accident Frequency Rate, and ensure that our employees are taken care of in health and life quality programs. Governance and integrity. We've always tried to adopt the best practices of governance in our daily practice, and there are some innovative examples in the industry. Good ESG performance has more compliance when we have consolidated governance as part of the culture of the company. Our goals are to ensure a business culture with the highest level of integrity, and we've been using for a while an international recognition diagnosis and ensure good practices of corporate governance. For energy transition, our main objective is to continuously identify strategies focused on low carbon economy.
We want to implement measures to reduce or mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and reach carbon neutrality by 2025. In eco-efficient operations, we are going to focus on operational excellence, focus on energy, water and waste. Our goal of energy is to keep 100% electric renewable energy, which is fully certified, which we achieved in 2022. In water, we want zero leaks with a risk of contamination of soil and water, and also zero waste to landfill. No hazard or non-hazardous waste sent to landfills, really through more sustainable solutions. In terms of responsibility for the surrounding communities, considering our national work and really the capacity to impact the regions where we are based, we are going to invest in initiatives that will promote positive impacts on education and employment and income generation in the surrounding communities where we are based.
Another goal of our plan 2030 is value chain. Considering both sides of commercial relations, we have goals for suppliers and resellers. We are going to ensure that 100% of our critical suppliers adopt excellent ESG practice and ensure that 100% of selected resellers adopt ESG practices or commitments. Finally, not least important, people. Once again, as we've heard, we are going to focus on continuing improvement of management to provide a diverse, inclusive environment. Achieving 50% level of gender and ethnic equity in senior management and 33% in the board of directors ensure an inclusive environment that can be recognized internally. These were the goals of our Ultra ESG 2030 goals. ESG is not a destination but a journey. Our process has been collectively built, and ESG is really part of the strategy of the group.
Thank you all very much. Before that, we are going to see a short video that sums up everything that I've mentioned. Immediately after that, we are going to hear from Tabajara speaking about Ultragaz. Thank you.
Thank you, Ligia. It's a pleasure to be here today to talk to you about Ultragaz during our ESG day and tell you about the progress we've achieved. I'd like to start our conversation setting the context, telling you about our progress. Ultragaz has been doing very significant improvement. You are aware of its market and you know about its recent progression. As we've heard, we've been bringing our strategy based on ESG. It's not separated, it's part of our strategy.
What I'm going to show you today is how it's been developed as part of our strategic planning that has already been addressed in previous occasions. Let me start by showing you how we got structured at Ultragaz to have that journey of sustainability. We've broken down into four energies that represent the path that we focused on this topic here at Ultragaz. Let me show you a brief video which clearly shows what these energies are and how they get connected to our initiatives. Let's see the video.
For us at Ultragaz, energy is only really good if it generates value. Value energy is what improves people's, communities', partners', customers' and society's lives. Value energy is energy for innovation. It is the kind that generates value for the planet, removing carbon from its operations that impacts global warming, that generates value for partners and customers today and always through better and cleaner energy solutions. Value energy is human energy, driven for the benefit of our people, that generates value for our employees through actions of professional development, diversity and inclusion, integral health and respect for human rights. Value energy is citizen energy, distributed in favor of the people in our operations' surroundings, that generates value for socially vulnerable communities through the expansion of business and socio-environmental actions that improve the IDH of the regions in which we operate throughout Brazil.
Value energy is ethical energy applied to the task of meeting the interests of investors and society as a whole through responsible protagonism in the sector, integrated governance, transparent reporting of initiatives, and public commitment to a better, fairer world with less greenhouse gas emissions. Value energy is energy with purpose and values. It is an Ultragaz commitment to the present and the future, to today's and tomorrow's generations. Ultragaz. Adding energy.
As you have seen, we got structured into our more sustainable Ultragaz journey based on these four energies. I'm going to show you in the material how we've developed our business and the future of the company concerning our four energies. A very relevant detail is that this organization is fully connected with the discussion of material topics that we've brought to the organization. There is a direct correlation. Some of these energies involve more than one material topic, but it encompasses all elements, and we can see how we can address each and every one of the material topics. We have details about most of them, but I'm just going to shed some light on the ones which I think are the most relevant ones. Let me start by addressing a very important topic, something which is essential for our operation.
It's a very important journey for us, safety. We've already discussed that in other occasions. We've made relevant investments for processes and infrastructure to evolve in the level of safety. We follow a number of relevant indicators for the organization, for example, Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate or Process Accident Frequency. But we are focusing more on people's behavior, how they deal with situations which place at risk the operation and their lives, more than what we used to have in the past, which was more focused on processes. This is our journey. We acknowledge that this is a founding pillar of our company, which is going to maintain the success of the company, and we are very disciplined and determined to really keep on progressing in this arena.
Speaking of energies, I would like to start by giving a special highlight to innovation energy, emphasizing some of the aspects on how it's part of our operations. In this first slide, I'm giving some highlight to our own operations, our direct operations or some operations with clients as well. Here we can see some highlights of relevant indicators, and improvement year-over-year. We've really improved in terms of disposal of waste. Our 39 units have very relevant programs. We've reduced by 50% the submission of waste to landfills. We have a number of our units really with zero waste sent to landfills. We also have a very important work with our light fleet operating, running fully with ethanol, just producing reduced emissions, which has really led to the reduction of emissions.
As you know, we have a very large operation of the bulk delivery routing. We've really invested in technology by creating a smart routing. It has reduced the number of kilometers covered in the operation despite the increase in number of clients and volumes served. It means we have enhanced our efficiency, and at the same time, we've obtained satisfaction of our clients with more optimized delivery, much more precise. As you can see in-house, we've obtained very significant improvements, and I believe we can keep on progressing significantly. Speaking of operational excellence. We are not only focusing on our operations, we have also been focusing on the operations of bottled and also bulk segments. Some electrical trucks for serving some of our retailers, especially for bottled products. We also have CNG, compressed natural gas truck for methane and bulk operations.
We are developing a partnership with Volt, a company of invested by us just to focus on last mile, really the delivery from retailers to consumers using a more friendly vehicle developed together with our supplier, and this is being offered to our network of resellers. We hope this is going to also help us expand our actions. We know we are responsible for the whole value chain and not only our operation. Moving on with innovation energy, which is a topic that we've been addressing for a while. There is a bias really on our solutions and we've brought to these solutions the creation of new uses and applications. Solutions of use of LPG, which are much more friendly to the environment. Even using LPG, we can obtain more efficient operations.
These are some examples of applications. There are over 20 already sold in the market. It brings smart management of the customer's processes using more efficient energy at the right time, really optimizing the operation. Operations in laundry, poultry, control, pizzerias, and the use of biomethane as a solution provided to our portfolio of customers. We really believe this market may expand, get more valued because it's an important part of our commercial role, and it's a very important role of Ultragaz to be on the avant-garde, coming up with new solutions and really taking it to our customers in a very efficient fashion. Just highlighting one of them, really to explain how the process goes. This one is quite well-known by the operation.
Grain drying for agribusiness, which you know is an essential industry in Brazil, but still needs very good process control using more modern technologies. As a result of the development of this technology provided to customers, we have better process control. Indirectly, there is a quality of product which is superior with energy efficiency, less consumption of energy, and lower CO2 emissions. We really believe in it. Very interesting alternatives. Here we can see the end of the process, but there is a lot of innovation and development that takes place before by making partnerships with other organizations that have helped us develop it all. This is a very important path for the future of the company, having a much more friendly operation for the environment. Moving forward, I would like to make some highlights. You probably have heard about it.
At first, Ultragaz was a company very well established with a business platform that can connect closer to customers. We are really betting on this vision, offering complementary energies to our existing operations. You've all heard about renewable electrical energy with the acquisition of Stella, also going into the market of CNG and biomethane, acquiring NEOgás. As you can see, we really believe in it. Ultragaz has huge distribution and presence with clients, very good relationship and good reputation thanks to its known brand. We want to expand our portfolio of products adapted to the needs of our customers. We have a clear role of developing options, more sustainable options.
For example, renewable energy here at Stella, renewable sources, really, solar power or wind power, trying to develop the market and offering access to our customers using really the size of our network of resellers and our B2B customers as well. At NEOgás, we are more focused on biomethane. It's something that has started being developed, and we believe that we have a role to play as a driver of this market. We hope we can offer that added value and bring together the capacity of biomethane we have in Brazil to customers that want to have that in its list of fuels available. We've been played that role of accelerator, sometimes even the enabler of these new operations.
This is what we've been observing, complementing our operational excellence, respecting the supply chain in LPG, and really complementing the portfolio of options by adopting different kinds of energies. Now moving on, I would like to highlight another important aspect of our products. We've been talking a lot about LPG and the progression of the bottled products. Now we have digital relationship. There are over two million customers with our app interacting with us. We have really evolved in this process, connecting the end consumer, the retailers, which are essential there, and the company. This year, which has 2022, we have brought the digital Vale Gás, replacing the traditional Vale Gás, which was a hard copy. Here we are talking about a digital relationship. People can buy Vale Gás and simply do it all online.
Acquire Vale Gás to deliver it to a different customer. This is all connected in our business platform, bringing together all resellers and the delivery parties of resellers. It was wonderful because last year we started offering a specific product that really served to support the situation of people in the population who were in a vulnerable portion of the population. They did not have access to bottled gas. We know this is a very serious situation in the country, and we want to have a key role to play. This is an important tool to connect all the different players that are willing to offer a solution here. By doing that, we can be absolutely sure that the product is delivered to those that need it. Let me tell you how the operation ran.
We have had a number of these operations, developed last year, 280,000 families specifically. We've made partnerships, with the donation, arm of Petrobras, bringing together different NGOs. Therefore, our role was to connect the people who were identified as being vulnerable and the final delivery to the product. We know exactly who delivered, which reseller it was, who received it. It impacted the communities. We've learned a lot in the process, and we've attracted other entities that also wanted to be part of these actions. We've expanded it throughout the year, and this is something that we believe is going to be part of our mission. We really want to keep on developing that.
It is something intrinsic to our product indeed. We are very glad with the results that we've achieved and highly motivated to keep on fighting issues such as this in Brazil, providing really efficiency and complementarity that we have in our action. To show you a little bit about the impact that it can have on society, I'm going to show you a brief video that brings a testimonial about this operation. Well, that's it. Thank you all very much. It was great to be here with you. I would like now to invite Décio to talk about Ultracargo.
Thank you. Thank you, Tabajara. Good morning, everyone. I'm really happy to be here to share with you how Ultracargo is evolving in its sustainability journey.
We've done a lot to make sure that ESG practices are fully incorporated as something intrinsic in the way we operate, do business, and generate results. I hope that I can show you through this presentation all our achievements in this agenda. Our strategic agenda focus on gaining productivity in our current operations, expanding into other geographies, especially the countryside area, but always aligned with sustainable commitments. During 2019 and 2020, we completed our material point matrix defining priorities for environmental practices, interaction with the society, and governance requirements. We defined 6 material topics: eco-efficient operations, inclusive culture and diversity, responsibility for the surrounding communities, value chain, governance and integrity, and health and safety, which our own values base over which we build everything.
We believe that these topics represent relevant concerns both in Brazil and abroad. By doing that, we generate values to our employees, clients, and shareholders, in addition to the surrounding communities and society at large. It was not a surprise to see that these topics were fully correlated with our strategic guidelines. We cannot develop a sustainable growth company without considering ESG topic. It's impossible to have a high-performance culture without addressing diversity. We cannot have productivity without planning and coefficient operations. We cannot be the preferred choice of our customers, another guideline of ours, without providing safety of people or facilities and governance and integrity when dealing with all stakeholders. During my presentation today, I'm going to show you a number of achievements that show our commitment with sustainable growth. We should always start from health and safety, which is non-negotiable to Ultracargo.
Our ambition is to offer a very solid culture of safety and health at excellent levels, ensuring quality of life and safe environment to all our staff. We've invested over BRL 80 million in 3 things, which are essential: people, processes, and systems. We've implemented systems and safety barriers which are referenced in our market. For example, the high-risk areas in our terminals, we have systems that have automated detection of flammable vapors or flames that automatically launch foams to fight the emergency. We are also investing heavily on the integrity of our assets to avoid the leak of products. Last year, there was no single leak that impacted the soil or the air. We have to have people on our constant attention. We train people on risk perception, reinforcing our standard operating procedures.
In 2022, we launched a program of health and quality of life to our staff and their family members, really focusing on the full physical and mental wellbeing. Even though we have important challenges, we still have seen some advances. There was a reduction in number of personal accidents, showing the effectiveness of our work of cultural transformation that we've been doing, and a very significant decrease in severe process accidents observed in the past three years. Going into something else, we cared for our people, but also the context where they are. In other words, our surrounding communities. We have recently have a full diagnosis of these communities. It was important to get to know how they are organized, what the social dynamics are.
In many of those places, we've came across poverty level, lack of basic service, and very few opportunities to those who live there. Among all the different detected needs, we identified education as our social main action, understanding really the transforming potential that education can have on people's lives. We've made two main investments. Primary high-quality education to children and adolescents and development of women in the communities, generating job opportunities in our own operations. Well, it's connected with our agenda of diversity. It has a social nature of it as well because women are breadwinners in many of those homes, and they are the ones really who can maintain kids at school. For the past two years, we've invested BRL 3.4 million in projects focused on education with direct investments using incentive laws and other emergency donations.
To talk more about that, I'm going to share with you a video that show the main highlights of our work in this area. I hope you have liked the video. Moving on, let's talk about eco-efficient operations. In 2020, we started implementation of SOL, which is our system operations, which has a new philosophy based on lean operations focused on reducing waste, optimizing use of assets, and improving service level offered to customers. SOL provides an integration of our productivity agenda, efficiency, and sustainability. The results, as you can see, show a convergence of our efforts. The more sustainable our operation is, the more efficient and more affordable. In 2020 and 2022, there was an increase of 31% year-over-year and a 16% cost reduction per sold cubic meter.
In the same period, we reduced by 44% the waste sent to landfill, thanks to awareness actions with our staff, segregating waste, recycling and composting. We've also migrated our contracts from free market to use of wind power. We've also got the I-REC certificate, so 100% of the energy comes from renewable sources. As such, our Scope 2 emissions with electric energy are zero when we considered the choice. Finally, I would like to say that in 2022, we've identified a number of alternatives to reduce by 80% our Scope 1 emissions by 2030, those that are directly generated by our own operations. Well, even though we have low emissions internally, good efficiency in our logistic chain really can bring important benefits also to our customers.
We have an agenda with very robust investments in infrastructure and processes to bring more efficient solutions for a logistic and environmental perspective, reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. We can, for example, mention our investments in Aratu, in a public pier, so it's going to reduce the line of vessels, improving the operations of terminal. Fewer lines, larger vessels with emissions. Our operation in Santos will just change the transportation from road to railway handling. Our improvement in operational efficiency has led to consistent reduction on the average time of our road handling. There was a 57% reduction of the average time of loading and unloading of trucks in Santos terminal. Improving service levels to customers with shorter operations, it means less time of trucks stop with emissions. Really the correlation between emissions and efficiency.
To close the next topic, energy transition. We've already talked about that in previous events. We have a very robust plan which is connected with the potential that Brazil has to lead this process. Despite the high levels of fuels in our terminals, or 60% of all that handling in 2022, we are getting prepared to expand our share in the use of biofuels, which has a huge potential both in Brazil and abroad. We have multipurpose terminals, which means we can deal with different products. In 2022, 10% of our handling was of ethanol, and we are trying to expand our work in biofuels, especially with corn ethanol, which has 70% fuel emissions of greenhouse gases than gas, according to the studies. We store this product in our terminals of Vila do Conde and Suape.
We are also considering the possibility of operating some terminals in the countryside area, especially the center west and southeast, just to deal with the production of ethanol. It's a very advanced plan, and I hope I can soon bring some updates to you. Finally, I hope I have shown you the important advances we have had in sustainability. Thank you all very much for your attention. Now I'm going to hand it over to Linden, who is going to talk about Ipiranga and this topic.
Thank you all very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Décio. This is a very important day to us because we are sharing externally our ESG plan of all the different businesses according to our moment and our strategy. At Ipiranga, we are still moving ahead with our short-term goals, focused on our four strategic pillars. Efficient logistics.
We focus on improving our processes to generate operational efficiency and improve the service levels. We also focus on continuous improvement of our supply strategies, leveraging further our capacity to execute active trading. We've evolved significantly in pricing intelligence with better tools, reviewed processes, and new organization that brings more consistent and positive results to Ipiranga and our resellers. As to management and engagement, we keep on moving ahead in emphasizing the brand Ipiranga that really can involve stakeholders, which means strong network of service stations, fully engaged with excellence in image and services. The priority ESG topics of Ipiranga are aligned with ESG strategy of Ultra Group and in full synergy with our business plan. Our sustainability management has been moving ahead so that our decision process always take into consideration ESG.
Our commitment is also seen in our cultural attributes and formalized into commitments which are part of our business strategy. We are fully aware of the fact that this is a journey and there is still a way to go. We keep on learning, moving ahead. Before talking about our actions, I would like to emphasize that safety in our operations is at Ipiranga as well as at Ultra, a non-negotiable value. It's part of our license to operate. This is why we continuously focus on improving our facilities, our operating procedures and consolidate safe behavior of people. For the past three years, there was a 22% reduction of lost time Injuries and 39% reduction of process accident frequency. I'm also going to emphasize later how our business strategy and safety go hand in hand.
Over the past four years, we've really generated transformation in our businesses. Throughout this path, we have maintained consistently focus on governance. We keep on improving our processes, internal controls, working with diligence and discipline. We have emphasized and reinforced our team of planning and control and we have improvement of our process, improving our methodology for capital allocation. In 85 years of history, we've always had ethics and transparency in the center of all our actions, and these values are reflected in the image and reputation of our brand before the society, in addition to positively influence our staff and business partners. To ensure this commitment, we have a program of integrity fully structured with the best practice to fight corruption, to prevent antitrust actions, and to mitigate conflict of interest, maintaining an environment which is free from discrimination and harassment.
In addition to engagement and also training every day during our conventions, we always talk about that. This year there were 5,000 people involved in this initiative. For the past three years, we have reviewed the structure of our organization and we have renewed our leadership, adjusting organizational structure to the demands of the business, bringing executives that have contributed with experience and specific competencies important to resume our growth. In addition, we have created an organization which is dedicated to ESG. We understand how important this topic is. We have also worked on developing our own internal talents with internship programs and partnerships with Harvard and INSEAD. All the transformation is part of a cultural transformation. Our numbers shows that it has proved to be fruitful with an engagement level that is as high as 82% in our climate surveys.
It also impacts our relationship with clients. Our NPS with resellers has shown a solid growth as well as the market share of branded network Ipiranga as you can see on the slides. ESG is a topic which has been in our agenda for a while. We are part of United Nations Global Compact since 2013. In addition, we are carbon neutral, and we've been so since 2014. We are pioneers in electric charging stations, and we are the first company to have exchange for electric motorcycle batteries in different servicing stations. For many years, we have encouraged different aqua-efficient practices, use of rainwater, for example, and also offering solar power for our resellers. Now we want to accelerate the ESG agenda.
Here we focus on really creating an inclusive culture, always developing people to have a stronger team, fully connected with the demands of the society. We have a program of diversity fully structured, trying to attract, develop and engage talents. We are a reference in the area concerning women in top leadership position. 29% of women are VP at the C-level or as directors, over 13% in 2019. 37% of our total staff are allegedly black or brown-skinned people. We really want to offer equity of opportunities through our programs of internships such as Ipiranga Talent and Tech Talent. 56% of the opportunities are given to black students.
As to people with disabilities, last year we developed a program called Construa to create business team specialists, and we have a dedicated career development path for them. 7% of our staff self-declare as LGBTQIA+. It means that an inclusive environment make people feel more comfortable. This is not only internally at Ipiranga. We are closer to the surrounding communities, working safely and really transforming their lives. We have developed a number of projects which intends to meet the specific needs of each region, bringing benefits, service and local development. Saúde na Estrada, this is a program at Ipiranga which is 10-year-old, and it provides care to truckers and the neighboring communities of our different service stations. With this trailer, we've reached 26,000 people serviced in 15 different states.
In 2023, we are going to have a partnership with the Ministry of Health for this program. We have also launched a program with SENAI, the so-called Operação Mulher, training women to work as production operators and to work in the industry at large, not only at Ipiranga. It's a recent program with excellent results. In the first year, over 20% of the recently graduated were hired within three months from graduation. Something interesting which shows compliance of that with this business, shows that our Port of Mucuripe, the new operation there, 36% of the total number of employees are women, more half of them coming from the so-called Operação Mulher program. We have also launched Inclusão Tech to train people with disability on technology and hire 25 of them to work at Ipiranga.
These are some of the examples of a number of projects developed, always aligned with our national presence together with Instituto Ultra. As I told you before, nothing of that would be of any avail if it hadn't been for safety. Safety is non-negotiable. We invest on risk reduction, technologies with different systems of alarm, and just spill control and automation of facilities, really promoting continuous improvement of our processes. We train our team based on safe behavior. This is something that goes beyond the walls of Ipiranga. We want to influence our suppliers, contractors, carriers in really developing best practices. Speaking of operation, the numbers are really significant. We deal every day with about 4,000 tanker trucks moving all around or two million kilometers handled and 15,000 loading and unloading operations of fuels in our facilities and different service stations.
Safe operation also impacts our capacity to be more and more efficiency, and gains of logistic and efficiency is extremely important for optimization of capital, improvement of service level, and causing less environmental impact and fewer emissions. It's possible to have a zero accident environment. We are going to move towards that. As part of our plan of having more efficient logistics, in the end of last year, we launched the program called MOVER, which promotes more safety and efficiency in the operation of our different carrier partners. By having a full assessment of the carrier through productivity, efficiency, and other elements, we promote the best practices in technology. We improve risk reduction and also fleet management. Those carriers are assessed based on more than 30 indicators and then classified based on their performance. They are fully recognized and compensated accordingly.
We have a policy of consequence to those that do not meet our minimum requirements, which means we qualify our suppliers and really take the ESG values to our whole supply chain. With MOVER, we want to optimize transportation, we want to develop the value chain, and we want to contribute to the society by offer safe traffic. Many actions and many results. I would like now to show you a short video that emphasizes what we've been doing. We keep on accelerating our ESG journey, qualified resellers really pay attention to transition of energy, more competitiveness, safe, efficient operation, and best service level. By doing that, we can have more positive impact on the surrounding communities. For 85 years, Ipiranga has been part of the life of Brazilians, constantly focused on meeting the needs of mobility of the population.
Thank you all very much, and I would like to hand it over to Ligia, who is going to carry on with our Q&A session. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Linden. Well, now we are going to start our Q&A session, and we already have some people connected to ask question. The first question comes by Thiago Duarte of BTG Pactual. Thiago, please.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. Great presentations. I'm going to ask three questions. I'll ask them, and then you can have them answered as you prefer. First, it's a question concerning what Marcos said about important changes in society, in companies, and how the changes in the Brazilian energy matrix can impact the businesses of Ipiranga. I'd like to hear you on that.
Some of the main issues of ESG agendas seem to impact the business of the company, especially Ipiranga and Ultracargo. We're not speaking specifically about the fuel matrix. There is a very important discussion going on about what will be our mobility and energy matrix in Brazil going from full electrical cars, especially light vehicles, into an intermediate level where there is mainly growth of penetration and biofuels. I would like to hear from you, looking through the crystal ball, where do you expect the Brazilian fuel market to move towards in the future, and how this is going to impact a company such as Ipiranga, which has thousands of resellers with storage facilities in a situation in which fuels are going to go through changes?
Second question is associated somewhat to it, what we've observed, which is also correlated with Ipiranga, we've been observing some players going into different links of supply chain, which is not only fuel distribution. Upstream in the production of biofuels or in selling electric power, which Ultra has somewhat started with Ultragaz. I would like to hear you, and it's also a way to ask you, Marcos, to tell us more, the fact that you have capital available to allocate wisely. Do you think it would make sense to go into other areas of the supply chain, specifically concerning Ipiranga, I believe?
Thirdly, a question to you, more to you, Ligia, because when we hear a company such as Ultra speak about their material points, material topics, and you talked about waste, value chain, accidents, it's still difficult to quantify how well the company is performing. I think the presentations were good. We understood your direction, but of all the items you've listed, which of them do you think the company still has more room for improvement, far from what you'd be considered to be your 2030 goals?
Well, great. Thank you, Thiago, for the questions. I'll go first because Ipiranga is really part of this process of energy transition. As you've pointed out, energy transition is a given in Brazil and in the world, of course. Brazil has such a great potential in biofuel. Here, energy transition will have its own specific characteristics.
Energy transition will be different with electric cars, with biofuels, and also fossil fuel. We know the transition is ongoing, and Brazil is very well-positioned because of biofuel. Ipiranga is a company that trades biofuel, not only ethanol, but also biodiesel, and it will keep on acting strongly in trading biofuels. We are also very confident in positioning Ipiranga as a company that is present in people's mobility. This is our vocation, right? It has been so for many years since we started talking about full service stations and other services involving the service station. Ipiranga is a retail brand. It's a retailer of mobility. Regardless of energy transition, Ipiranga will be part of the people's mobility and all with solutions.
We still have 6,500 excellent retailer stations and points and that's based on which we are going to drive our business. Energy transition is a reality and Ipiranga is part of that, especially being a company all focused on mobility. In terms of position in the supply chain, maybe Taba can tell us more about Ultragaz as well.
You've mentioned that maybe Ultragaz is not very much impacted, but I think you want to hear more about risks, right? Ultragaz, in our traditional business of the company, LPG, for example, we believe it will be present for many years because of the wide distribution. Brazil has one of the highest penetration of LPG. 96% of the population use it, especially small businesses as well.
We can see new uses and new solutions. Maybe this will somewhat shrink, but still considering energy transition and we've been interacting with you along these lines because we want to be a platform of solutions to our customers, not only focused on one product that used to be our main product. You've seen all the recent initiatives of the company, we emphasize our distribution, our brand, tradition, our relationship with resellers and end consumers, offering new solutions in LPG and also new kind of products. I think we can broaden the portfolio of products of the company, and that's why we believe the energy transition does bring potential to us.
The position of each of the companies in this transition, as Linden pointed out, we've started with Stella, just providing sustainable energy to smaller customers and also offering, for example, residential, electrical support. Maybe we can use Ultragaz because we have that long-term relationship with our customers. We are going to cover the market towards electric cars recharge as well. Also, for small size businesses, industrial applications, we've started now the operation with NEOgás, developing the biomethane market, and we believe we are a company that can release production and commercialization of the product in the long run. We see that as being avenues of expansion of the company as a result of energy transition.
Tiago, thank you for the question. Speaking of Ultracargo and the impact of energy transition, maybe electric car won't be the only solution to Brazil we've been discussing and hearing that in the media. For example, ethanol hybrid cars are still very much discussed. We've been focusing on investments on the region where we still have a fuel deficit, and that our applications of Vila do Conde and Itaqui, exposing that to the agribusiness and really expanding that. Another part of our strategy is to have operations in the countryside area, more inland in Brazil. Ultracargo wants to be a service provider, improving service and logistics of all these value chain, always reducing costs. We have multipurpose terminals, there is fuel and other products that can be trade and handled there. That's a great advantage.
We still believe there is a long period of use of fuel, especially north and northeast of Brazil, where still there is some shortage of operation, plus our work more inlands and working in renewable sources.
Tiago, if I may complement that and speak of Ultrapar's role, in addition to our three businesses, our holdings can also build a more renewable capital allocation strategy. The three business can focus on what they do well and Ipiranga will be more focused on mobility, on the re-retailing focus than Ultragaz offering all different options of energy and Ultracargo going on logistic efficiency, developing infrastructure and Ultrapar. What we will not do are strategic acquisitions without return. No, this is not part of our plan. It's not because it's strategic, renewable that we'll do anything without return on investment.
No, we are not going to make investments along those lines. As we are a holding, a listed company is a holding company, so I can just allow the businesses to work seamlessly in their business and then changes in portfolio can be done at Ultrapar without really compromising the organic focus of the companies individually towards a more ESG-oriented kind of business. Thank you for the question, Tiago.
We've heard in some presentations, a company that has a structure robustness and a track record in governance. Whenever we implement ESG strategy, things get somewhat easier, right? Because we are relying on what we already have, our metrics, our data management. This is also part of our ESG 2030 plan.
This is an important point to make because by doing that, we have, I would say we have a very well-prepared environment from a governance standpoint. Of all the material topics I presented, some of them, we have already addressed, and others are somewhat lagging behind. Inclusion and diversity, we can see here, even though each company has already evolved and has taken an important path, diversity and inclusion is a priority in our strategy so that we can really improve, and this is going to be part of all the activities of the company. All the other material topics, energy transition is part of the daily experience of the company. It is a challenge, of course, because of the context, because of unanswered questions shown by macro trends.
It is something that we'll try to focus on to keep on progressing and taking the a key and frontal role in it. I would say that all companies have initiatives and strategic plans, which have some of the material topics at different levels of evolution. This is why our strategy was created with coinciding points that will keep on measure and try to make up for any lost time towards obtaining really good results. Anyone else? Great.
Now let's go into our second analyst, Monique Greco of Itaú BBA. Good morning, Monique.
Hello, good morning. Thank you for the presentations, for the opportunity to ask you a question. I also have three questions and based on what we've just heard in the first answers. First to Marcos Lutz. When we think about the changes in portfolio made by Ultrapar, can you tell us more about what is, let's say, the vocation of the investments, what are your preferred kinds of energy? What has a better fit with the portfolio of the company?
What's the preferable business model? Is it more focused on home applications or industrial applications? What kind of clients do you want to go into business with? I have a question to ask you about Ultracargo, because Ultracargo has a strategic presence in very important points where fossil fuel is imported into Brazil. Throughout the last year, we've seen a very challenging environment for the independent importers that had been very active in the sector before that. What is your take on these independent importers somewhat getting away from the market?
What can you tell us about biofuel and bioethanol to offset this impact? Finally, for Tabajara from Ultragaz, NEOgás is an interesting portfolio solution for the customers of Ultragaz. Can you share with us any expectations of penetration of NEOgás solution in your portfolio of clients? How much do you intend to access more industrial applications, industrial customers or not? Is there any synergy with Ipiranga? NEOgás maybe can offer the solution to the industrial clients of Ipiranga who are also looking for clean energy solutions. That's it. Thank you.
T hank you. Well, let me speak about, you know, about the topic, but it's always difficult to talk about future acquisitions. If we are a listed company, of course, our strengths are commercially based. We do not manufacture molecules. We are a trader or a service provider.
Through Ultragaz and Ipiranga, our footprint is on retailers and operating in last mile for Ultragaz and getting to the level of mobility involving Ipiranga. These are maybe easier acquisitions where we can just connect with our business, such as NEOgás, and Tabajara is going to talk about that. You bring to our current system, and you already have a number of synergies. Ultrapar necessarily does not to be limited to the current businesses owned by it. I like to think that within ESG and this is not our earnings release conference call, I'm really emphasizing the idea of ESG. I like to think that we have this role of really reduce carbonization of the economy. It's not done by selling something with high footprint and then obtained with low footprint.
It really goes when we just reduce the carbon consumption of the whole chain. In Europe, many companies sold their high footprint business and simply dealt with their problem of carbon emission. They still operated with private equity and others, the society at large was not benefit. If there is a clear path to reduce carbon emissions, I can have an acquisition with low multiples, very profitable in the long run, and there is also a strategy of low carbon operation. That would be the ideal acquisitions of Ultra from the ESG standpoint. Once again, we are not going to make any movement to produce low return just because it has low carbon results or improves our ESG goals. We are not going to do that, and we are unanimously in agreement about that.
I really wanted to make that point clear. Thank you for the question. It does give us an opportunity to elaborate further. We are located strategically, and you've talked about import, but we are where there is a structured deficit of fuel. The fuel's going to get there by importing or cabotage. What we've observed is not a reduction of import. There was an increase of import, but concentrated on larger distributors. Some import traders, small ones, reduced their participation, but the other large ones increased their role. Petrobras, of course, is not the only supplier. Vila do Conde, Itaqui Terminal just ran at full capacity throughout the year. We are in regions where there is structural deficit, fuel gaps there, and we don't see any threat in the short or in the mid-term.
Speaking of ethanol, this is something we quite like. 10% last year it meant 10% of our handling in Brazil. Now we are increasing our export to corn ethanol in our current storage, where we store in Vila do Conde, for example, in Suape. We are also storing corn ethanol in Itaqui and we have some planned investments to go inland into Brazil and enhance our exposure in the supply chain. We want to connect the terminal incentives to the railway, ethanol going from the north to Santos and then going to cabotage operations. We see a number of movements of going inland for areas where there is corn crop or other areas where Brazil has enhanced competitiveness, and we believe this is going to have a very important role in energy transition.
Great. Now building on NEOgás, we just took over the operation of the company last month, so we've just started the journey. It's part of this energy platform focused on our portfolio of clients. We can see it as an opportunity to really release the market of biomethane, that which located more remotely where there is no access to LPG. Our portfolio comprises a number of mid-size and small size company. It's not focused on residential applications, much more for industry, small and mid-size industry, and also large industries if required. There is still an untapped market and in the short run, we want to support the growth of supply.
We want to add value to the supply chain as a whole because of the product, so we are going to lever the platform and the relationship we have. We have 60,000 corporate clients, major opportunities. We've been interacting with the customers to understand the interest for the product, so we might have good news. I believe that right now it's too early to talk about market share. We are just developing the solution. You've mentioned Ipiranga. We work very closely with Ipiranga, with the corporate market of Ipiranga, which has an important fit with this operation. In the short term, with Ultragaz, we want to expand the market, increase the scale with a product that has a very interesting carbon footprint. Thank you.
Thank you and good luck in the journey.
Thank you, Monique.
I'd like now to invite Luiz Carvalho from UBS for his question.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to ask you a question. Great presentations. Thank you. Extremely useful to us. I also have three questions. I'm going to start with Lutz. Now, thinking of projects, and I believe you've already given us some level of details, and you've talked about diversification. I would like to know what are the financial metrics that are considered for the holding. Is there any specific tier for approval of these projects? How do the financial metrics interact with ESG goals when you are defining M&A operations or other projects?
The market has been seeing a number of players trying to diversify their portfolio, going from fuel, fossil fuel energies to other options, just as you have, which makes sense, of course, trying to get more diversification through M&A, trying to emphasize the so-called environmental resilience. If you could go into more details about these options, how does the group perceive as a potential producer of renewable energies? Or is it going to be what fuel manufacturers or as a provider of raw material or alternative energy? Décio, we could see in your presentation that you've reduced Scope 2 emissions to 0 in Ultracargo, and you've done also 100% of renewable energy.
My question is, can you give us more details about how the process went and what was the cost and investment at Ultracargo? Can you think about replicating that to the other two businesses, especially 100% renewable energy, which is one of your goals for 2030?
Luiz, let me try to be specific, but always dealing with the difficulties of disclosing anything which I cannot. There is no different metric for acquisition because of ESG. It is the company's journey, and this is a characteristic of existing businesses and future businesses that have to be part of the business plan.
An activity that we expect to be going on for 100 years, so the discounted cash flow of the activity is different from an activity that has been in existence for five years, and in five years' time, it's going to shrink again. I have to consider in the future cash flow that there is going to be a reduction of cash flow from this activity. Therefore, the present value of this business would be calculated differently. We've had a change in funding costs in Brazil and also, of course, the level for approvals of investments here has changed. I think there are two levels, so to speak. One level that we use for organic projects which have much lower risk levels.
Linden brings it for approval, Taba or Décio, which are, let's say, marginal business to existing businesses, which would lead to acceleration of natural organic growth. There is one specific tier which is lower than the tier that would be required for the investments of Ultrapar. We have capital for not sharing as dividend and then going to investing that money. It means that we have to have better return on investment because the integration will be somewhat riskier than simply having more service stations, a new facility for Ipiranga or a retailer operation for Ultragaz or a new terminal at Décio's area. I'm not going to give you any precise number because we've adjusted that tiers because of the financial volatility in Brazil.
We're still have maintained our discipline as always, we are never going to make investments. "Oh, this is ESG, let's invest money in it, I'm just going to approve at lower rates of return." No. If we make an investment, we anticipate the growth perspective. For example, Neogás, we've made an investment, we approved it based on a cash flow, which is of a CNG, there is a great upside, which is the use of biomethane. Compressed biomethane because many of the clients willing to pay a premium, they want to have the renewable molecules set apart, we can do that by injecting the system. It should be taken in truck. It's the same infrastructure, same molecule. Neogás is a leader. There is a huge upside.
There is an ESG bias, but it does not add return on investment. It changes the rate. No. It adds value because the future projection of growth based on the market we expect to have for biomethane in Brazil will allow a more robust cash flow in the future. That's the reasoning. Hope I have made myself clear.
Thank you, Luiz. Thank you for your question about Scope 2. The three companies of the holding are 100% Scope 2, zero. We all buy electric energy from renewable sources, we want to maintain that by 2030. This is fully aligned with the search on productivity and efficiency. We know electric energy is a potential add-on.
When you are acquiring, you go into the free market, then you say, "Well, free market, so I want renewable energy." That's fine. Productivity and sustainability, they go hand in hand, right? I've just said in my presentation concerning Scope 1, our own emissions, we've studied our processes, and we've seen some investments that are going to be made in upcoming years, which are going to reduce by 80% our Scope 1 emission. There was a positive really return without buying for carbon. Gaining in productivity, using less, less input of nitrogen. We are reducing 80% our Scope 1 with a positive return on investment and a positive footprint. All companies are Scope 2 neutral, and we want to maintain that Scope by 2030.
What you've just said, this is very interesting, and let me emphasize something here. Generating efficiency, which is doing more, providing more services, producing more assets with fewer resources, which is efficiency, is the essence of sustainability. Sometimes we name things fancy and sometimes it tends to deviate us from our main focus. If we say be more sustainable in all different areas, it means be more efficiency, which is a huge concern of our company and programs that we have. It brings economic benefit with the G. It also brings the environmental benefit, so using less input, raw material, and it's sustainable in the long run. There is a long-term plan behind it all. With very rare exceptions, all the initiatives demand work and effort, but they never go against economic efficiency.
Great. Thank you all very much.
Thank you. Great day. Thank you.
We've got some questions through the webcast, and we are not going to be able to have them all answered, but if any of them are not, our team are going to prepare answers and send them to you. The first question is about governance and the members of the board of directors. How do members of the board of directors which are being appointed can help Ultrapar reach its 2030 goals?
In our next assembly, or general meeting, we are going to have new board members. All of them or most of them are very familiar with biofuels. There are people who are also specialized in more in the financial area and have a broader financial interest.
In this Ultrapar Board of Directors, the journey has been moving towards having more sophisticated analysis of our three businesses and also future investments to be made. Some board members are familiarized with energy transition and also biofuels. I think that what really matters to me is the stress on financial issues. Those seven members are experienced in international markets as well. We've listed all these competencies when we indicated this new group of board members that are going to be voted in our future general meeting. Once again, governance, and as I said in my presentation, it impacts people, right? In our organization, much beyond the Board of Directors, we are really trying to bring more efficiency, detecting the opportunities offered by energy transition brought to a group such as Ultra.
There were more, a number of references to electric cars, but we've brought together some questions here and then go into our conclusions. Considering other countries that migrated to electric cars, especially in the North Hemisphere, how do you see it as a risk in Brazil, and how would that impact your results? I don't see it as a risk. I see it more as opportunity than risk. The energy matrix will be different in the future, and it's going to be comprised of different kinds of energy. Can you all hear me all right?
Once again, we are not speaking of risks. We are speaking of opportunities, actually. As I've said, the energy matrix is going to change. The energy transition is a given, and we expect to have a different energy matrix with electric car, with biofuel-run cars, and people will use different kinds of energy sources. I think we have to be part of the transition. It's a process. It's a journey. Ipiranga will always be present in people's mobility, and it's developing a position to do it.
And with the fleet electrification, this is also going to be a possibility of leveraging our business. Biofuels will always be a strength, not only for the country, but also for Ipiranga. In addition to that, and thinking from the holdings perspective, we are knowledgeable about energy. As companies, we are in direct contact with Brazilian consumers, so home, industrial, and commercial applications. We know a lot.
As capital allocators with discipline, we will have many opportunities to allocate smartly the capital within the energy transition landscape. Changes will come. We don't know exactly what they will be, and we have to be very observant of the journey. In the North Hemisphere, there's still a lot to happen. Electric car is a possibility that's going to be a role to it, but other things will come into play. If you go deeply into the analysis, you see other problems, right, to be solved in electric cars. If you think about the transition of energy in the world, we are speaking about a radical change. The humanity has never experienced that. A lot will come, a lot will happen. Brazil is very well-positioned for energy transition because we have renewable matrix with a wide limit.
We have also the biofuels to be exported. We have a possibility of reducing carbon use and bringing industries to Brazil. It's not something for Ultra, but for the Brazilian economy and Ultra would ultimately benefit from that, as well as specific things involving mobility. As you pointed out, Ipiranga has a national footprint and will have to observe what will be going on and then take organic structure positions, making adjustments. This is not going to happen overnight. It will take time, and we will have time and opportunity to get organized. What matters is having a team of quality, properly qualified, that do things appropriately so that we can move ahead in this journey.
Well, this was our ESG 2030 plan. Thank you all very much for all of you who had been with us. Thank you for those who have participated. As we've heard, I would like to reinforce, ESG is not a destination. It's a journey. It's a direction. You have our commitment to really hear from our performance through our integrated report and through our different financial documents. Thank you very much. Have a great day.