Dairy Crest Severnside - Case study: Reducing water use
The Dairy Crest Group is a signatory to the Federation
House Commitment which pledges to contribute to an
industry-wide target to reduce water use by 20% by
2020 compared to 2007.
At Dairy Crest's largest site,
Severnside in Gloucestershire, this represents an annual
reduction of 180 million litres of water per year, enough to
fill 72 Olympic sized swimming pools.
The site teams have carried out a detailed survey of
water usage by installing water meters where required
and balanced this consumption data with processing
patterns. From this, a combination of initiatives has been
launched to reduce usage.
To raise awareness of water
as a precious resource and to change staff behaviour,
the site generates daily departmental usage reports and
bi-monthly site improvement newsletters along with
benchmarking data. It has also trained Utility Champions
in each department.
Reduction projects include cleaning cycle final rinse
reductions, installing water-efficient sprayballs, auto
switch off manual hoses and repairing and replacing
steam traps. The company has also initiated reuse
projects including process cooling water recycling and full
use of the condensate from evaporation of milk products
in the site services systems.
These initiatives have already delivered a 6% saving in
water use between 2007 and 2008, about 54 million litres.
More Information
This case study istaken from the Our Five-fold Environmental Ambition: Progress
Report published in November 2008.