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Environment

Energy Use

The efficient use of energy is a major plank of our environmental policy. ABF manufacturing operations in the UK are participating in the UK Government's Climate Change Agreement Scheme to reduce specific energy consumption and thereby reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and combat the serious threat of climate change. Those sites which are subject to the EU’s Pollution Prevention and Control regime are under a statutory requirement to minimise energy consumption by use of best available techniques.

In 2006 ABF’s factories and stores consumed 10,500 GWh of energy of which 45% was consumed outside the UK. Given the variety of our operations and products there is a correspondingly wide range in the amount of energy used per tonne of product manufactured. Our most energy intensive businesses are British Sugar, BSO China, AB Mauri, ACH, BSO Poland, George Weston Foods and Allied Bakeries.  Because of this variety it is inappropriate for ABF to set corporate energy and CO2 reduction targets. Operating companies set their own reduction targets according to their business needs.

Our companies use a balanced portfolio of fuels. Across the Group, natural gas, one of the cleanest fossil fuels, provides half of our energy, while 10% is generated from bagasse, the fibre from sugar cane, which is a renewable energy source.  Other fuels uses include coal, electricity, heavy fuel oil, and liquid petroleum gas.

Although the absolute quantity of energy used by the company has grown over time this is a reflection of ABF having grown. The following chart shows that despite the growth, the rate of energy usage per tonne of product has remained steady.

Renewable Energy

More than 10% of ABF’s energy requirement is met by burning bagasse in the BSO China factories. Bagasse is the fibrous residue from sugar cane once the sugar has been extracted. In fact over 95% of the energy used in the BSO China factories is renewable, being derived from bagasse. Boilers burn the bagasse to produce steam for the process and for electricity generation. Part of the bagasse is also baled and sold to the paper industry.

Having investigated the feasibility of a UK manufacturing facility for bioethanol from renewable crops, British Sugar has started to construct the UK’s first bioethanol plant at Wissington in Norfolk. Bioethanol is a pure alcohol produced by fermentation of the sugars in sugar beet followed by distillation, as illustrated below.

The resultant end product is denatured and added to ordinary unleaded petrol at a 5% blend rate. This bio-fuel will provide a sustainable energy source for vehicles and will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per mile from a typical car by 3%. Overall the bioethanol from the Wissington plant will produce greenhouse gas savings equivalent to taking 33,000 cars off the road.

The plant is due to start production in 2007 and will process sugar beet into bioethanol. The factory is a substantial undertaking, as can be seen in this photograph taken during its construction.

In addition, British Sugar is considering developing a larger, grain-based, plant and this is the subject of a joint feasibility study with BP and DuPont.

Energy Case Studies

BSO Poland has invested heavily at its flagship plant in Glinojeck specifically to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption. They used a three-pronged approach of elimination of losses and waste in the production process, increased automation of the process to produce a more stable and efficient operating environment and investment in new energy-reduction technology. The largest investment was the modernisation of the sugar juice evaporation operation, which accounts for 75% of the site’s total energy consumption. The photograph shows part of the new evaporator train located outside the building. In total the site reduced emissions of carbon dioxide by 20,000 tonnes last year.

British Sugar at its Wissington plant in the UK designed and piloted a system to capture waste heat from their animal feed dryers and introduce it into the dryer combustion chamber in order to reduce significantly the total amount of energy required. One of the factory’s 3 dryers was converted in 2006 and saved over 1,100 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Next year, when all 3 dryers have been converted the annual savings should be in the region of 3,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide. In addition their Bury St Edmunds factory is installing a system to capture biogas from their effluent treatment plant and use it as a supplementary fuel in their combined heat and power gas turbine system which will increase the efficiency of the power plant, reduce reliance on fossil fuels and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by around 2,000 tonnes a year.

AB Mauri operates 47 yeast and bakery ingredient plants in 27 countries. Its Hull factory in the UK is set to reduce its consumption of electricity generated by fossil fuel by more than 25%. It has added to its existing natural gas powered CHP generator a further on-site generator which burns biogas captured during the yeast production process. Not only does Mauri benefit from this highly cost-effective and renewable energy source but the environment benefits from a reduction of 2,700 tonnes a year of carbon dioxide. Similarly, several other Mauri factories capture biogas and use it as fuel for their boilers. Their Camellia site in Australia has just invested in a system to capture the biogas from the effluent digester and to use it as a boiler fuel which should reduce the amount of energy from fossil fuel by 5 million kilowatt hours a year.

Tip Top Bakeries on New Zealand’s South Island benchmarked its energy consumption against other similar processes in Australia, America and the UK. They were able to highlight several areas for improvement, such as the operation of tray washers and improved baking controls and dough mixer cooling systems. This has resulted in savings in both energy usage and over £20,000 in operating costs.

Emissions to Air

Carbon Dioxide
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted both directly by the combustion of fossil fuels at our sites to create steam, heat and electricity, and indirectly by the power stations from which we buy electricity. Our use of energy in 2006 led to the emission of 2.47 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, both directly and indirectly.  The energy generated from the burning of bagasse, sugar cane waste, is rated as CO2 neutral as it is a renewable energy source. The use of bagasse last year prevented the emission of approximately 400,000 tonnes of CO2 which otherwise have been released by burning fossil fuels.

Energy consumption at our UK plants, and hence CO2 emissions, have remained broadly static overall during the past three years. The international energy usage figure for 2003 was the first time we had gathered such data. The significant increase in energy from 2004 to 2005 reflected the acquisition of the Mauri yeast and bakery ingredients factories, which are heavy energy users.

Other Emissions to air
Most manufacturing sites, with the exception of the sugar factories, only have single points of release to air from relatively small steam boilers. Emissions to air from most of our factories are not significant and do not impact on local, national or transboundary air quality. The dominant boiler fuel is natural gas which creates limited emissions of acid gases and particulates. Atmospheric emissions from the other fuels have to comply with local environmental standards. The emissions from those large boilers which are subject to the EU’s Pollution Prevention and Control regime are stringently limited by statutory controls.

We recognise that some manufacturing processes do emit low levels of odour from the cooking and drying of food and some may emit fine dust, especially where bulk powders are handled. However, our companies are very conscious of their responsibilities towards their neighbours and work hard to prevent any nuisance.

Water Use
In 2006, ABF factories took in almost 72 million cubic metres of water, mainly from local rivers. The main water users are AB Mauri, BSO China, SPI and British Sugar.

The significant increase in the quantity of water brought on to sites over recent years is due to the acquisition of yeast and ingredients factories such as Protient whose processes require considerable quantities of water, although around half of it is used for cooling the process.

Water Case Study - George Weston Foods
The George Weston Foods’ Speedibake factory in Australia joined the Every Drop Counts Business Programme in 2005. Since then it has been actively pursuing simple and effective water-saving initiatives. Water is at the core of their business and is used for cleaning the manufacturing lines, cooling the process and servicing the amenities as well as conditioning the bread. Speedibake has installed new and more efficient cooling towers, replaced the old steam boiler with a much more efficient one, fitted timers and aerators to all hand-washing stations, installed dual-flush toilets and installed more efficient showers. As a result the company has cut water use by 30%.

Wastewater
Food manufacturing operations usually produce considerable quantities of wastewater. The polluting load primarily takes the form of dissolved, emulsified or suspended food particles in water as a direct consequence of the processing and cleaning operations. A small number of our plants, mainly the sugar factories, have in-house treatment facilities. The majority of our manufacturing sites discharge their process effluents directly to the sewer to be treated at a municipal sewage works before discharge to a watercourse. All of these discharges are controlled by legally binding discharge consents which are enforced by the national environment regulators to ensure that local rivers are not harmed.

Waste
In 2005, ABF’s operations generated some 187,000 tonnes of waste for disposal, of which 2,600 tonnes were classified as hazardous waste. The weight of waste which we finally dispose of equates to 1.5% by weight of the tonnage of products manufactured.

Managing our wastes is a two-stage process. Firstly we always seek ways to minimise the quantity of waste produced as this makes good environmental sense and has commercial benefits. This applies not only to inert and non-hazardous wastes such as production residues, spoilt finished products, paper, cardboard and plastic packaging materials, but also to the small quantities of hazardous substances such as unwanted laboratory chemicals, used lubrication oils and asbestos removed from buildings. Where possible, to reduce consumption and to prevent waste, we have minimised the packaging for our products whilst still guaranteeing product integrity.

Secondly we ensure that any waste is stored, handled, transported and finally disposed of under a strict duty of care to ensure that the waste is disposed of to appropriately engineered and licensed facilities.

Waste Case Studies
The AB Food and Beverages Ovaltine manufacturing site in the Philippines was presented with an award from the City of Pasig for their exemplary achievements in recycling, waste reduction, cleaner technologies and for implementing appropriate environmental management systems.

Speedibake operates two sites in northern England manufacturing frozen and chilled bakery products. They introduced a waste minimisation culture in an attempt to reduce total waste and to minimise disposal costs. The company also focused on recycling as much as possible of the waste originally sent to landfill by better segregation of materials at point of use, recycling office paper and even recycling the 1.5 tonnes of paper towels from their washrooms. Ingredients and chemical suppliers have been encouraged to use returnable containers. In the past two years the company has halved the amount of waste they landfill which halved the landfill tax paid. They are continuing their waste minimisation and recycling efforts and aim to be cost-neutral on waste disposal in 2 years time.

Their activities have been recognised by one of their main customers, '3663', who awarded them the 3663 Environmental Performance Annual Award. In addition, Groundwork, a government sponsored business group, presented them with the Waste Minimiser award for 2006.

British Sugar Poland has been working with the sugar beet growers encouraging them to improve the cleaning of soil from the harvested sugar beet on the farms before it is delivered to the sugar factories. Therefore more of the soil remains on the farm rather than being transported into the sugar factories and the amount of soil which the factories must dispose of (soil discharged from our factories is classified as waste under Polish law) is reduced.

British Sugar in the UK invests considerable effort to use productively as much of its sugar beet raw material as possible. It also endeavours to minimise or make productive use of by-products, principally:

Soil
Annually British Sugar receives around 350,000 tonnes of soil, which accounts for 4% of the 9 million tonnes of sugar beet it purchases from UK farmers. Working in partnership with growers, combined with developments in harvesting and loading machinery, has led to a reduction in the amount of soil removed from fields by more than half in the last 15 years. The UK has the lowest soil tares and the highest delivery standards in the EU. This improvement benefits the environment, and not just by minimising soil erosion at the farm. Transport of soil with the crop is also reduced; so saving energy and road congestion and reducing soil handling and treatment at the factories.

The soil received with the crop is recovered and marketed under the brand 'Topsoil'. Over the last six years Topsoil has established itself as the largest supplier of quality topsoil in the UK. Sold primarily into the landscaping industry, Topsoil is ideal for shrub planting, seeding or turf laying. Topsoil is also widely used in restoration, civil engineering projects and sports ground construction.

All soil received is used in productive applications, around half of it is returned to agricultural land to replenish stocks and provide textural benefit. This ensures that this valuable non-renewable resource is used in a sustainable way, contributing to UK and EU soil protection strategies.

Stone
Typically about 70,000 tonnes of stone each year is received with the crop, which equates to approximately 0.75% by weight of the crop. This is recovered and marketed for civil engineering, road building and construction applications. Substantial capital investment (totalling approximately £1million to date) has been made to improve stone separation, washing and product quality.

Limex
Each year approximately 350,000 tonnes of liming material (equivalent to around 3.5% of the delivered crop) is produced by the industry as a co-product of the sugar manufacturing process. This is marketed throughout the country under the "LimeX" brand and sold primarily to agriculture for soil pH management.

LimeX provides a sustainable option for soil pH correction, significantly reducing the volume of limestone and chalk that would otherwise be mined and crushed for agriculture and other lime markets, thereby supporting the government's objective of encouraging environmental recycling.

British Sugar is the largest supplier of liming products to UK agriculture and the LimeX range has Soil Association approval for use in organic farming systems. Increasingly, LimeX is being used as a sustainable soil-forming material in brownfield restoration, to simultaneously adjust soil pH and supply useful plant nutrients. Most recently, LimeX is being used directly by the mushroom-casing industry for mushroom production and is an essential ingredient to good casing.

Chemicals
In most cases the main use of chemicals in our manufacturing facilities is for cleaning the food processing equipment. Chemicals are used also by engineers for boiler water treatment and the maintenance of food processing equipment, although some of the oils and greases are of food grade. Many chemicals are used by our laboratories for routine quality control analyses.

Transport
The operating companies place great importance on minimising the amount of fuel used to deliver our products to our customers in line with ABF’s Environment Policy and good business practice. As an example of how the fuel is minimised, British Sugar monitors closely the driving performance of each of their sugar delivery drivers. The monitoring includes fuel consumption trends, driving speeds, driver breaks and the use of a special driver trainer accompanying drivers periodically to assess their techniques. Their performance is discussed with them during structured reviews. Where necessary to improve performance and reduce environmental impact, additional training is provided.

To help minimise the distance to be driven we try to maximise vehicle usage by the use of back-loading where practicable, i.e. using the vehicle to carry products and loads both to and from our customers.

Environmental Complaints
The number of environmental complaints varies significantly year on year and tends not to reflect the actual number of events causing complaint. There were various causes of complaints including factory noise, traffic movements, particulate emissions and odours, but there were no clear trends. The companies involved regret any inconvenience caused and have all taken remedial action.

As the complaints related to site-specific issues they were addressed locally. As an example an ABNA site received numerous complaints regarding odours. The company investigated the sources and invested in remedial technology. Since then there has only been one complaint in over 4 months.

Environmental Fines

In 2006 there were five environmental fines totalling the equivalent of £51,000 which were imposed on companies within the Group.  Four of the incidents related to effluent and one related to litter. The most serious of these incidents involved an uncontrolled release from the process into a local river. The factory immediately conducted a thorough survey of all the site drains and discovered that a new item of plant had been connected inadvertently to the wrong drain. This was immediately corrected and all other sites belonging to the company carried out similar drain reviews.

Biodiversity

There is no biodiversity plan which applies to the whole of the ABF Group and its subsidiaries since each company takes action as appropriate. As an example, British Sugar takes considerable effort to encourage beet growers in the UK to minimise their environmental impact and enhance conservation of the countryside. In 1999-2000, British Sugar engaged an external ecology expert to audit the factory sites and produce a full assessment of the flora and fauna.

Supply Chain Management

ABF believes that pursuing environmental improvements can also have beneficial commercial benefits. Wherever possible, therefore, subsidiary companies are encouraged to use their influence within the supply chain.

British Sugar, which is the sole processor of the UK’s sugar beet crop, has extensive positive influence on the environmental impact of the country’s 7,000 beet growers:

1. Pesticides. One of the benefits has been that since 1982 there has been a 52% drop in the volume of pesticides used on the sugar beet crop, includinga massive 95% reduction in organochlorine, organophosphate and carbamate insecticides.
2. Fungicides. The quantity of fungicide applied to sugar beet is low in comparison to other crops. In recent years, powdery mildew, which damages sugar beet, has been targeted for late season control, so that a single application of fungicide is becoming standard practice. In comparison, three applications of fungicide are usually made to cereal crops and as many as seven applications to potatoes.
3. Fertilisers. By providing high quality agronomic advice to growers, British Sugar has been able to encourage growers to reduce nitrogen fertiliser applications to beet crops. Over the last two decades there has been a reduction of around one third. Sugar beet now has the lowest nitrogen usage of any major arable crop in the UK. The use of organic manures is widespread and offers a continued food source and an increase in soil invertebrate biomass.
4. Re-use. British Sugar has become the UK’s largest grower of classic round salad tomatoes, producing over 34 million tomatoes a year, through the innovative re-use of by-products of sugar processing. The low-grade hot water from the CHP plant at our Wissington sugar factory in Norfolk, which would otherwise be sent to cooling towers, is instead channelled through 70 miles of pipes to heat the 5-hectare glasshouse where the tomatoes are grown. Similarly, the carbon dioxide produced by the CHP plant is pumped to the glasshouse to increase the growth rate of the tomatoes. Water used primarily to wash the sugar beet delivered to the factory carries vital nutrients from Norfolk's soils and is re-used to irrigate the tomato plants.

Further information can be found on the web site at http://www.britishsugar.co.uk and follow the links to the environment section.

Germain’s Technology Group, which is based in England’s East Anglia and specialises in the development of seed treatments, has also played a key role in pesticide and insecticide reduction. Over the last 10 years, seed treatments replacing soil granules and foliar sprays have helped to substantially reduce pesticide use. For example, prior to the introduction of modern systemic insecticide seed treatments, the beet crop often received granular controls at drilling, and over five sprays of contact insecticides during the spring. Now over 70% of the crop is protected with soil and foliar pest seed treatments, which very often have more than halved the number of spray programmes, and increasingly have seen no sprays being needed at all for the control of pests. Germain’s input in seed treatments fulfils the exact strategy of overall Integrated Crop Management systems, relying on accurate forecasting of crop protection needs and monitoring of pest and predator activity.