Pahiatua plant scoops sustainabitility award
We’re focused on Fonterra’s global eco-strategy, says site operations manager
It’s not just about saving money, it’s about having a sustainable outlook. ‘How can we better utilise our resources across the country?’ — Fonterra Pahiatua operations manager Graham Thomson
Fonterra Pahiatua site has picked up the prestigious Sustainability Award at the annual Fonterra New Zealand Manufacturing Awards.
For the first time, the event was held by Skype link-up around the sites due to Covid-19.
“Everyone was able to see whereas before only delegates could attend,” said Fonterra Pahiatua operations manager Graham Thomson.
They were runners-up in three other categories: People, compliance and quality. In 2019 they won Best Medium Site Cup and the Quality Cup.
“Part of Fonterra’s new strategy is really focused on sustainability,” said Graham. “Its important that we ensure our performance is sustainable over a period of time. The global Fonterra strategy is linking to sustainability — not only important environmental targets, but results year-on-year.
“That’s why we won the award this year, because we’ve done some really good things environmentally. Fonterra has some lofty targets: water, waste to landfill, and energy.
“We’ve had some good gains in those. This has been followed by a sustainable performance across all key business metrics.
“Pahiatua is without doubt Fonterra’s most water-efficient site. That’s been really key. Being one of the most energy efficient sites, we make year-on-year improvements.
“Fonterra set in 2003 a target to have a 20 per cent energyintensity reduction by 2020. We managed to achieve that target. Energy is one of our biggest costs. LED lighting is huge now — Fonterra brought in big shipments of these.
“Our plants are expensive to run, we use natural gas and electricity as our two main energy sources. Any small saving like 1 per cent is a massive number at the end of the year. Our next target is 0.5 per cent reduction in energy use.
“We have an aspirational target to set a 30 per cent reduction in absolute emissions [carbon footprint] by 2050. We’ll learn how to and do what we can.
“Waste reduction to landfill is a challenge — how much can we recycle, reuse or repurpose before we send it off to waste? We have reduced our number of skip bins and conduct waste audits — what should be there and what shouldn’t.
“We compost all of our hairnets. Every time someone comes on to the plant, they’ve got to put on a new hairnet. We send them off to worm farms where they turn into compost. Plastic from the laundry is recycled. Plastic, paper and cardboard are pressed into bales and sent to recycling.
“It’s not just about saving money, it’s about having a sustainable outlook. ‘How can we better utilise our resources across the country?’
“We do a lot of things in the community. The sustainability award recognises this as well.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work with different community organisations.
“Last year we had a Winter Workforce — guys going out and cleaning gutters for the elderly for example. Unfortunately we couldn’t do it this year due to Covid-19 but we will look at restarting this in 2021.
“We’re a co-operative, we’re owned by our community by our farmer shareholders. We want to give back where we can. The previous Grass Roots Fund has been rolled-up into the Hapori Fund [Ma¯ ori for community]. People can apply for that fund now. I sit on that committee for our region.
“We had some guys go down to the sports stadium to build some new seats. Cleaning up rubbish off the roadside is another Fonterra Pahiatua initiative,” said Graham