Resource and Energy Use
Cutting resource and energy use business-wide
Globally Fonterra is using resources more efficiently as part of its efforts towards being a more sustainable co-operative. Recent energy reduction results are equivalent to the total annual electricity use of approximately 100,000 households and will cut carbon emissions by about 300,000 tonnes per annum. This represents a 14.6 per cent reduction in energy consumption per tonne of product produced since 2003.
In New Zealand, Fonterra’s Emission Account has been tracking carbon emissions from Fonterra’s manufacturing sites. This has helped Fonterra to reduce its emissions per unit of production, as well as ready the business for an Emissions Trading Scheme. Since we began our energy reduction programme in 2003 along with the Emissions Account we’ve reduced our emissions per unit of production by 15 per cent, and achieved a total reduction of 268,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent since 2003.
Meanwhile, Fonterra’s Australian operations are participating in the Government’s Energy Efficiency Opportunities initiative. This is designed to identify and encourage the adoption of cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities, boost productivity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You can download Fonterra’s public report here .
Fonterra Australia and its legacy companies have been reporting company-wide carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions information to the Australian Greenhouse Office since 1998, as part of the original Greenhouse Challenge programme established in 1995. Although this program has now ended, Fonterra instead reports under the Federal Government’s National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting scheme. Fonterra’s Australian operations also reports to the National Pollutants Inventory (NPI), Environment and Resource Efficiency Plans (EREP), and the National Packaging Covenant (NPC).
Here are some ways we’re saving energy and other resources:
New Zealand
• Fonterra’s Te Awamutu site has made good progress in reducing waste to landfill – from 153 tonnes in the 2006/07 season to 86 tonnes for the following season. The site recycles steel drums, butter wrap, salt and powder bags, cardboard, plastic, aluminium cans and bag liners. Te Awamutu aims to reduce its waste to landfill by another 10 per cent in the 2009/10 season. The site has also cut its electricity usage by almost 10,000MWh in two seasons.
• At Whareroa a low-temperature, site-wide heat recovery loop links six factories via an innovative 500,000 litre stratified tank. This saves around 10 tonnes per hour of steam, plus energy used for cooling tower and chilled water loads.
• Across several manufacturing sites, the rollout of best practice in compressed air systems has achieved around 30 per cent reductions in electricity use in providing compressed air.
• A focus on maximising on-product time has yielded significant energy savings across all Fonterra’s New Zealand plants. This was achieved by reducing breakdown interruptions, minimizing idle running, and avoiding unnecessarily long Clean in Place cycles.
• A project undertaken at Waitoa in 2007 replaced aerators in the aerobic waste treatment system with more efficient equipment achieving annual electricity savings of 2,300 MWh and emission reductions of 1,400 tonnes CO2 per year.
• Fonterra’s Awaroa dairy farm at Edgecumbe is using a New Zealand Solar energy system to heat the water that is used for cleaning the milking plant, and typically accounts for 30 per cent of farm dairy electricity use. While this trial is continuing to collect data, the findings to date suggest the solar system achieves energy savings sufficient to give a six-year payback on the investment.
Australia
• Our Mt Waverley site reduced water and energy consumption per person by 20 per cent and 17 per cent respectively in 2009 compared with 2008. This represented 170 tonnes of CO2 and 200,000 litres of water for the office.
• The Balcatta site recently installed a reverse-osmosis filtration plant and associated tanks for the recovery of clean water, reducing the site’s town water consumption by 23 million litres per year.
• At our Dennington site operational procedures have been optimised to turn the dryer’s primary inlet fans off when the dryer is not on-product, rather than leaving the dryer on stand-by mode or even a low setting idle mode. This saves 210 tonnes of greenhouse gasses per year via gas and electricity savings.
• At Stanhope the waste water treatment plant aeration control has been optimised using real-time disolved oxygen control. This saved 56,000 kWh of electricity in the first month following commissioning and is equivalent to 68 tonnes of CO2 for the month.
• Fonterra Australia’s tanker fleet is making good gains with the introduction of B-Double trucks which use less fuel per litre of milk transported. Over four years they’ve gone from using just one B-Double truck to around half of their 65 strong fleet, helping to save half a million litres of diesel per year. In addition to the new tankers they’re using more efficient scheduling systems and targeting fuel efficiency as part of their driver training.
We’ve also carried out energy efficiency audits on all Fonterra’s Asia and Middle East manufacturing plants team to identify areas for improvement resulting in greater efficiency.
Globally Fonterra has a strong involvement in the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI), an organisation created by the food industry to support the development of sustainable agriculture, involving the different stakeholders of the food chain.
Greater efficiency in on-farm energy use.
People are being encouraged to use less resources, including electricity, and farmers are no different. Reduced energy consumption on-farm has major environmental benefits as well as saving money. Tools available include the use of hot water cylinder insulation, energy efficient lighting, heat recovery systems, variable speed drives on vacuum pumps and, of course, operating existing assets more efficiently.
