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Carbon Management Best Practice in Food and Drink Manufacturing

Guidance prepared as part of FDF's Five-fold Environmental Ambition.

• Carbon Management Guide - Introduction
• FDF's Five-Fold Environmental Ambition
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food & Drink Manufacturing
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Food Chain
• Carbon footprints

Carbon management guide - introduction

This short guide is designed to help food and drink manufacturers understand the importance of Carbon Management and to provide practical advice on ways of reducing CO₂ emissions. From our sector's perspective, these primarily arise from the burning of fossil fuels, upon which we depend for generating energy and raising steam.

The guide has been commissioned by the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) in the context of our Five-fold Environmental Ambition launched in October 2007 to make a real difference to the environment.

One element of our ambition is to show leadership nationally and internationally by achieving a 35% absolute reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 and aspiring to a 30% reduction by 2020. This reflects:

• FDF's acknowledgement that climate change is arguably the biggest single challenge facing mankind and the planet
• that the main cause of climate change is the release of greenhouse gases, such as CO₂, into the atmosphere
• that the food chain represents a significant proportion of the UK's emissions of greenhouse gases.

We hope that by explaining where CO₂ emissions occur in the sector and providing “top tips” for reducing them, we will help food and drink manufacturers to play their full part in tackling climate change. The planet and future generations depend upon it.

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FDF's Five-Fold Environmental Ambition

The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) committed, on behalf of its members, to making a significant contribution to improving the environment by targeting priorities where they can make the biggest difference. Working collectively, our 'Five-fold Environmental Ambition' is to:

• Achieve a 35% absolute reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 compared to 1990.

• Seek to send zero food and packaging waste to landfill at the latest by 2015 and make a significant contribution to WRAP's Courtauld Commitment 2 target to reduce product and packaging waste in the supply chain by 5% by end of 2012 against a 2009 baseline.

• Make a significant contribution to WRAP's work to reducing the carbon impact of packaging by 10% by 2012 against a 2009 baseline.

• Achieve significant reductions in water use to help reduce stress on the nation's water supplies and contribute to an industry-wide absolute target to reduce water use by 20% by 2020 compared to 2007.

• Embed environmental standards in their transport practices, including contracts with hauliers as they fall for renewal, to achieve fewer and friendlier food transport miles and make a contribution to IGD's Efficient Consumer Response UK Sustainable Distribution Initiative to save 80 million HGV miles over the period 2010-12 in the grocery sector.

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Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Food & Drink Manufacturing

Energy Related Emissions

The main sources of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from food and drink manufacturing sites relates to the use of energy:

• The burning of fossil fuels such as oil and gas lead to “direct” CO₂ emissions at the factory. The key uses of fossil fuel are for steam boilers and other heating systems such as ovens and driers.
• The use of grid electricity leads to “indirect” CO₂ emissions at the power station producing the electricity. The key uses of electricity include refrigeration, compressed air, pumps, fans and processing / packaging equipment.
• All transport of raw materials, finished goods and your staff also gives rise to emissions from vehicles.

For all the food and drink factories in the FDF Climate Change Agreement, the overall split of emissions between fossil fuels and grid electricity is approximately equal. However, different sub-sectors of the industry have very varied emissions profiles. Some processes, such as food canning and baking are very heat intensive, whereas others like frozen foods and flour milling use much more electricity.

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Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Food Chain

Food and Drink Manufacturing: The largest emissions of GHGs related to food production and consumption do not come from food manufacturing plants, which only represent about 10% of emissions from the food chain.

Agriculture: About 50% of GHG emissions come from agriculture. Most of this is not energy related. Key emissions include methane from livestock and N2O which is emitted from fertilisers in the soil. The animal feed and fertiliser also factories that supply the agricultural sector are also big energy users.

Retail: The retail and catering sectors are also significant representing about 15% of emissions. Most of these emissions relate to energy use, including a significant refrigeration requirement. Refrigeration systems using HFC refrigerants often have a large GHG emission because of refrigerant leakage.

Domestic: Storage and cooking of food in domestic dwellings is also significant, representing about 15% of emissions.

Transport: The energy use in transport between different stages of the food chain represents a further 10% of emissions. There is increasing concern about 'food miles' especially if these involve food transported by air.

However, long distance transport is not necessarily bad in terms of CO₂ emissions – for example the extra transport energy importing vegetables from Africa might be less than the glass house heating required to grow the same crop in the UK.

Waste: Any waste food put into land fill will create emissions of methane. This can represent a significant proportion of food chain emissions. It has been estimated that between 20% and 30% of food sold in the UK is wasted.

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Carbon Footprints

Many food companies are measuring their carbon footprints and publishing information about carbon emissions, for example in Annual Reports. There are a number of different types of carbon footprint, based on the “system boundary” included in the footprint. For example:

Corporate footprint: a. The carbon footprint of a food manufacturing company might represent the direct emissions from the companies operations including energy use, transport, waste, refrigerant leakage etc.

Product footprint: b. This includes all the food chain emissions of a particular product including agriculture and retail as well as manufacturing. Product footprints can also include the domestic emissions.

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More Information

View the full report from which the information in this section is taken FDF's Carbon Management Best Practice In Food and Manufacturing - pdf | 228kb