At C&D Foods, Doing More with Less, is our sustainability strategy which aligns us with our parent Group ABP. It’s been a whole team effort, led by Tomas Harin, our Group Sustainability and Environmental Manager, and we are delighted that those efforts have been recognised by the Green Business & Sustainability Awards, for which we were finalists in four categories, and our parent company, ABP Food Group, won in the Sustainable Water Achievement Award category.
Recognition in prestigious awards is fantastic, but that’s not what motivates us to drive higher standards, cut waste and reduce our carbon footprint. Our passion is raising standards and delivering what our customers need – and that includes innovation and best practice when it comes to environmental performance.
The Green Business Awards judges considered a wide range of companies and criteria when deciding on their finalists for the awards. Here are just a few of the initiatives that helped us come to their attention.
Aiming high
A critical part of driving meaningful environmental improvement was to benchmark our starting point so that we can measure our milestones against previous performance and see how far we have come.
Setting targets is also essential, guiding the direction of travel for our sustainability initiatives to ensure that we remain on track with our goal of doing more with less. With this in mind, we have set new targets, which have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative SBTi and are aligned to the global challenge of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. We have committed to reducing our scope 1 & 2 emissions by 42% by 2030, as compared to our May 2024 benchmark. So far, we are ahead of schedule, having achieved a 33% reduction in scope 1& 2 emissions already, thanks to the initiatives we have put in place.
Reducing emissions
A great example of how we’ve taken positive steps forward in reducing our carbon emissions is the conversion of our Edgeworthstown plant in Ireland from Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) to Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) for steam production.
LPG is 26% less CO2 intensive per kWh than HFO, and our Edgeworthstown site now runs entirely on LPG.
We have also made a substantial investment in overhauling our boiler system, replacing three inefficient boilers with two state-of-the-art models, designed to meet the demands of modern industrial processes. The improvements include a new Reverse Osmosis (RO) unit, which allows us to feed much cleaner and purer water into the boilers, significantly boosting their performance. We have installed two new economizers too, which recover waste heat from the boiler’s exhaust and use it to preheat the incoming water. This has not only increased the efficiency of our boilers, but has also contributed to a significant reduction in gas consumption.
There is lots more to do, and we’re committed to continuing to make progress. We’re also keen to reduce our scope 3 targets, which include reducing raw materials emissions by 30.3% and reducing packaging emissions by 42%.
Every drop matters
As a manufacturer, we need water to produce our pet food products and ensure high standards of hygiene in our factories. However, there are opportunities to reduce water consumption, prevent waste and recycle water, without compromising on quality or operational excellence, and we are making changes to embrace those opportunities at our sites. Our target is to reduce water consumption by 10% by 2030 and we have already succeeded in reducing the amount of water we’re using by 5.6% as compared to 2020 levels.
Much of our success in reducing water consumption has been achieved at our Boulogne-Sur-Mer site in France, where we initiated a programme of leak detection and repair in 2018, as well as reconditioning critical equipment, such as sterilisers and water tanks for our boilers.
Once again, we could see that we needed to lay the groundwork for achieving our goals, and carried out a detailed analysis of water consumption, taking data-driven approach to implementing a targeted water efficiency strategy and introducing daily water monitoring.
Our attention to detail has paid off: since 2017, our French site has saved more than 115,000m³ of water and improved our water usage efficiency by more than 30%! It’s a great example of what can be done, and a success that is inspiring us to think creatively and act methodically to do more with less.
Cutting Waste
Part of our commitment to doing more with less involves delivering high standards while producing less waste. It’s a target where we are now achieving our goals, becoming a zero waste to landfill company in 2024. We’re achieving this by sending our waste for processing, so that we can recover any ingredients that can be used in our recipes, with the remainder sent for anaerobic digestion, which produces biogas fuel and organic fertilizer, which is used by farmers to enhance soil quality – a truly circular approach to sustainability!
A sustainable future
The environmental goals we are working towards at C&D Foods are just part of a joined up approach to delivering a sustainable future, as we deliver quality to our customers, opportunity for our team, and value to the communities in which we operate. We are proud to have been recognised by the Green Business Awards, but even more proud to be achieving our goals
