Arla ahead of Dairy Roadmap targets

Arla Foods is on track to meet several of the 2015 Dairy Roadmap targets ahead of schedule, having comfortably met the 2010 targets.

Arlas sustainability manager, Richard Laxton, said that the companys strong environmental position is due to the dairy industry-leading environmental strategy that it launched in December, which dovetails perfectly with the ambitions of the Dairy Roadmap. Our environmental strategy is the first in the industry to incorporate both our operations and those of our supplying farmers, said Richard.

We have set ourselves some challenging targets and our goal is to achieve emissions targets which meet or exceed climate change and key voluntary agreements. Arla led the industry when it was the first to incorporate 15 per cent recycled plastic into its polybottles in October last year, 50 per cent above the set target of 10 per cent and, as well as working hard to hit the 30 per cent goal by 2015, the company aims to include 20 per cent recycled plastic in its bottle caps too, although this is dependent on recyclate supply.

When it comes to adopting environmental management systems, each individual Arla processing site has been certificated to both ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 since 2007 and, in 2006, all the companys dairies began working with the carbon management programme, Carbon Desktop. The system, which monitors energy usage allowing for precise targeting of areas of high consumption, is enabling the generation of significant utility savings, and is being upgraded at the start of June. The new-look system will more clearly highlight changes in consumption patterns and also provide enhanced month-on-month and year-on-year comparisons allowing Arlas carbon action teams, which have been mobilised at each site, to more easily monitor the effect of their carbon reduction initiatives.

Arla also expects to hit the 2015 Dairy Roadmap zero production waste to landfill target three years ahead of schedule, with two of its six sites already reusing, recycling or recovering all of their solid wastes.

In collaboration with Lindhurst Engineering and the University of Nottingham, Arla has recently unveiled an innovative and pioneering microbial fuel cell (MFC) which is predicted, with further development, to revolutionise energy generation on farms and within the dairy industry by converting both farm slurry and dairy effluent into electricity.

Arlas environmental strategy sets out for the following targets:

• By 2012 no waste to be sent to landfill

• By 2012 reduce CO2 in packaging by 10%

• By 2015 reduce water usage by 20%

• By 2015 incorporate 30% recycled plastic in fresh milk bottles and 50 per cent by 2020

• By 2020 reduce C02 emissions from operations by 34%, from a 2005 baseline

• By 2020, 30% of energy to come from renewable sources

Against its 2005 baseline, Arla has already achieved the following, despite increased production:

• 14.7% overall CO2 reduction

• 19.7% reduction CO2 from dairies

• 18.4% CO2 reduction from packaging

• 4.1% water savings

• 79.7% of waste diverted from landfill

• 12% improvement in the miles per gallons achieved by LGVs

• Incorporated 15% recycled plastic into all fresh milk bottles

• Saved 1,350 tonnes of plastic due to its packaging lightweighting project and the companys two-pint bottles are the lightest in the industry

In addition, Arla has:

• Signed the Courtauld 2 agreement

• Signed the Federation House Commitment

• Become a founder member of the Freight Transport Association’s Logistics

Carbon Reduction Scheme

• Announced that in 2011 it intends to lightweight all its polybottles by a further 15-20%