Our aim is to use our privileged position as a global processing business, to create a safe and inclusive working environment for our colleagues, to minimise our impact on the environment and to support the local communities in which work.
Globally, we have set ourselves the following tough targets:
Enabling the well-being of our people:
We will only achieve our goal of being the first choice for plant-based oil solutions if our talented colleagues are well, motivated and empowered to play their part in Making Better HappenTM. The safety and engagement of our employees are therefore our top priorities.
Our wellbeing targets include:
- No lost time injuries
- 2021: All of our sites to be human-rights risk assessed, with salient issues identified and plans initiated.
- 2025: 10% improvement in our employee engagement score (base year 2017)
To read more about the well-being of our people, click here.
Here are examples of the progress we are making in our UK operations:
Waste
In 2015, our UK oil refinery was sending 35% of all its waste to landfill. We set ourselves the tough target of reducing this as far as possible and, since August 2020, we are proud to report that we have sent no waste at all to landfill. This has required a number of significant changes, including:
- Taking control of our waste streams and carefully segregating waste to ensure that everything that can be recycled is, from waste oil to printer cartridges.
- Adapting our manufacturing plant and processes so that materials such as bleaching earth to be recovered and sent to biomass.
- Discussing the importance of waste reduction with our colleagues, and ensuring that everyone understands our new procedures. Reinforcing key messages with site wide ‘put the right stuff in the right place’ campaigns.
We have also engaged with a new waste services partner, who can better support our efforts going forward.
Water usage
As a manufacturer of food ingredients, water is an essential resource. We use it in many ways, but one of the most significant is the washing of oil tanks, and the roads around our site to ensure food and working safety.
We gathered a project team together, to explore ways we could reduce our use of water, without compromising either cleanliness or safety.
It’s good to be able to report that, despite producing greater numbers of smaller batches to meet customer demand, we have succeeded in reducing our overall consumption of water for the first time in 2020.
We have achieved this by investing in more efficient equipment, and introducing new, optimised cleaning methods. Colleagues are being encouraged to adopt them, and trained to use new water-saving equipment, such as trigger-free water guns.
To build on the progress we have made, we are considering installing more water meters across the site, to identify areas of high usage. We are also looking at ways to reduce our use of water in our cooling towers, as well as reviewing the performance of our onsite water treatment facilities.
Electricity
We currently receive all our energy from non-fossil fuel/renewable sources. We have also succeeded in reducing our overall use of energy by adopting energy-efficient manufacturing processes.
Being a good neighbour
The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged local communities across the world. We have endeavoured to help where we can, whilst doing everything we can to ensure the safety of our employees.
Here in the UK, we have donated refurbished laptops to local schools, to help students access their lessons whilst working from home during lockdown.
In more normal times, we encourage engagement with our local communities, by supporting our colleague’s fundraising endeavours and getting involved, where we can, in the drive to encourage young people into technical careers, especially within food manufacturing.
For further examples of our support of local communities, across the world, take a look at our Sustainability Report 2020.