Green is our colour
Global environmental strategy
As a socially responsible company, we strive to minimize the environmental effect of our activities. With this aim in mind we have developed our own EHS (Environmental Health and Safety) standards and environmental key performance indicators have been established.
Besides that, the ISO 14001 certification in all our factories is well in progress. This will help us to identify and control the environmental impact of our activities, to constantly improve our performance and to implement and achieve environmental objectives and targets.
At Orangina Schweppes we recognize the potential environmental impact of our industrial processes; for that reason we constantly analyse and improve our manufacturing methods.
In order to rationalise water consumption, to cut down energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce solid waste while increasing the level of recycling, several master plans were set into place in 2004. The following figures and examples include environmental key achievements occurred between 2006 and 2008.
Energy efficiency
One way we have reduced the carbon footprint is by being more energy efficient. For example, in france we have a new, better-performing boiler, diminishing both, energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Our energy consumption was reduced by 10%, saving up to 14.6 million kW-h.
CO2 Emissions
Industrial emissions have been reduced in all our factories, leading to 8,095 tonnes less of CO2 produced, i.e., a decrease of 12%. A good example is our concentrates site, where we avoided heating daily 100,000 l of water from 15ºC to 45ºC.
Water
Water is an increasingly scarce good. Conscious of that, the new processes we implemented on three of our sites in France lead, in 2008, to reduce the consumption of water by 50 million litres. All together, Orangina Schweppes water consumption has been reduced between 2006 and 2008 by 8%, saving up to 323 million litres.
A better use of packaging has helped us to decrease emissions. For that reason we have implemented strong packaging optimization programs in our own bottling operations yielding excellent results. For instance, in 2008 we used 400 less tonnes of PET per year in our plastic bottles and 600 tonnes less of glass in 2007. In two years the steel used for our cans has decreased by 158 tonnes.
Waste
Packaging generates a lot of solid waste. That is why we are making substantial efforts to reduce the quantity of packaging materials we produce, making them easier to recycle and implementing lightweight packaging programs. That way solid waste has been reduced (2006-2008) by 17%, while maintaining a level of recycling of 88%. In other words, we have avoided 5,310 tonnes of solid waste.
We are conscious of the impact greenhouse gas emissions have on the environment. As part of our efforts to reduce them, we are incorporating sustainability considerations into our distribution system and to our corporate travel policy.