Environment
The desire to create a more sustainable world requires understanding, collaboration and action at many levels: by governments, companies, brands and consumers. This drive also comes from consumers themselves, who want to understand the environmental impacts of their choices. In addition to our initiatives to reduce and manage the group’s environmental impact, we have intensified our participation in industry forums to help shape sustainable consumption standards, tools and best practices.
Each year, Tiger Brands voluntarily discloses its performance under the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for carbon emissions and water management. This global standard allows us to benchmark our performance against international peers and to learn from best practices.
In addition, the group is a signatory to We Mean Business, committing to three categories flagged by CDP that are most relevant to our business:
- Adopt a science-based emissions reduction target
- Responsible corporate engagement in climate policy
- Report climate change information in mainstream reports as a fiduciary duty.
We are also working with South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on assessments conducted by the national cleaner production centre to enhance manufacturing industry competitiveness through its resource efficiency and cleaner production programme. This is aimed at reducing the use of natural resources and minimising waste.
Tiger Brands environmental performance scorecard
Tiger Brands is committed to achieving sustainable, profitable growth and, over the years, sustainability has been incorporated into our strategic scorecard. Formal health, safety and environmental policies are in place, outlining our commitment to addressing material issues for the environment. In addition, we monitor and set targets in line with international best-practice standards such as ISO 14001.
Key areas identified for improvement and our progress are set out below:
| Target (baseline 2014) | Read more | |||
| Water | Page 67 | |||
| Projects being implemented across our manufacturing facilities aim to reduce water consumption, while ensuring the quality and integrity of our products. | Reduce water consumption and water discharges by 5% per annum for the next three years. | |||
| Energy | Page 66 | |||
| The amount of energy consumed per kilo of product is being reduced. | Improve energy efficiency by 5% per year for the next three years. | |||
| Packaging | Page 64 | |||
| We support initiatives using materials from sustainably managed, renewable resources while considering our packaging and product performance requirements. | Reduce packaging use by 3% per year for the next three years. | |||
| Waste | Page 66 | |||
| Recycle or recover energy from by-products with an ultimate goal of zero waste landfill and full recovery of unavoidable by-products. | Reduce waste for disposal by 4% per annum. | |||
| Carbon emissions | Page 64 | |||
| Emissions at our operations are substantially below stipulated limits in the National Environmental Management Air Quality Act 2004. |
Ultimately, eliminate emissions and greenhouse gases as far as practically possible. |
Intensity scorecard
| 2015 | Improvement | 2014 | 2013 | |
| Energy (MWh)/ton) | 0,11 |  |
0,11 | 0,12 |
| Water (kℓ/ton) | 1,98 |  |
1,94 | 1,98 |
| 6Waste (ton) | 0,011 |  |
0,017 | 0,020 |
| Packaging (ton) | 0,45 | |
0,70 | 0,86 |
| Production CO2e | 0,22 | |
0,22 | 0,24 |
In addition to these focus areas, our manufacturing operations conduct the legislated testing of air emissions from boilers, ventilation areas, dust particle matter disposed, noise, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide levels.
The primary certification process being driven across our manufacturing operations is the stringent, global ISO 14001. Progress against this certification has been achieved in 95% of manufacturing South African operations. Environmental awareness training is ongoing where necessary to close identified gaps from first-stage audits.
Key developments in 2015
- We continued to strengthen systems and structures to support the execution, performance measurement and continuous improvement of initiatives identified in our scorecard (below)
- We are establishing partnerships and social models to manage expectations and co-design solutions. Some of our actions in this area are summarised below.
Reducing CO2 emissions
As part of understanding the environmental impact of our products, we have conducted product lifecycle assessments using a cradle-to-grave approach.
This assessment considers how raw materials are extracted, how resources involved in planning or designing the product are consumed, the materials and energy used in manufacturing, packaging and distribution, impacts from using the product, and waste and pollution created during the process and at end of life.
Extraction, location and processing can contribute significantly to carbon emissions and the overall footprint of a product. Where possible, by lightweighting our packaging, we are significantly reducing carbon emissions and costs, while directly improving the lifecycle assessment of products. The table below summarises two examples of this initiative.
| All Gold Tomato Sauce | Original weight | Current weight | Annual reduction in mass |
CO2 emissions reduced (tons) |
| 350ml glass bottle | 230g | 205g | 210 | 188 |
| 700ml glass bottle | 367g | 330g | 1 408 | 1 260 |
| What we analyse in a product lifecycle assessment | ||||||
| Impact | Description | Example | ||||
|
Energy use |
Total primary energy extracted from the earth, expressed as energy demand from non-renewable resources (eg petrol or natural gas) and renewable resources (eg hydropower, wind or solar). Efficiencies in energy conversion (electricity, heats and steam) are taken into account | Bean farming contributes significantly to primary energy demand due to the agriculture and plantation process. In the preparation process, the major contributors to primary energy demand are bean farming, steam consumption and transporting beans to the manufacturing site (86% of beans are imported by ship and transported by truck to our factories).
Squeeze bottle has 4% less environmental impact than glass. |
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| Climate change
Indicator: global warming potential (over 100 years) |
Greenhouse gas emissions (CO2and methane) | Filling and canning stage accounts for 30% of global warming potential (22% from producing the cans).
Squeeze bottle has 50% less environmental impact than glass. |
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| Water body health Indicator: eutrophication (soil run-off into water bodies that supports robust plant life but deoxygenates the water, killing animal life) |
Identifying the equivalence between sodium and potassium for both terrestrial and aquatic systems |
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| Acidification
Indicator: acidification potential |
Emissions with acidifying effects on the environment, specifically sulphur, sodium and halogen atoms |
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| Air
Indicator: photochemical ozone creation potential (or smog potential) |
Emissions that contribute to low-level smog (the reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds under ultraviolet light) |
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Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction
The diverse sources of GHG emissions include:
- Direct GHG emissions from sources owned or controlled by the group (scope 1)
- Indirect GHG emissions from generating electricity, heating and cooling, or steam generated off site but purchased by the group (scope 2)
- Indirect GHG emissions (not included in scope 2) from sources not owned or directly controlled by the group but related to our activities (scope 3).
Tiger Brands is committed to reducing its carbon emissions by improving energy efficiency in its operations. In addition, since water is a significant business continuity resource for the group, we continue to drive initiatives to reduce our water use. As part of our commitment, we participate annually in disclosing our carbon emissions and water footprint under CDP, the accepted global standard for carbon and water reporting for its 2015 carbon and water submissions. Tiger Brands was well rated on both disclosure and performance. This is an encouraging result and we will continue to work towards our goals.
To drive continuous improvement in these areas, it was deemed imperative to raise awareness in our operations and to develop champions in manufacturing units with the highest impact on carbon emissions and water use.
Tiger Brands has enrolled engineering managers, site services (utilities) managers and technical/artisan employees on some of the national cleaner production training offered by the CSIR. This includes courses on energy management systems, and system optimisation for fans, compressed air and steam. Attendees have now launched focused optimisation projects at their respective business units.
To monitor and measure improvements and GHG reductions, we focus on intensity reduction (lowering the ratio of energy use per ton of product produced) (see the table on page 64).
The table below shows the group’s scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions for the year. The data covers our South African manufacturing sites, in line with our strategy to initially focus on these operations and extend the programme to international operations in the rest of Africa over the next three to five years.
Managing our environmental impact
Manufacturing encompasses all the processes in transforming perishable raw materials into safe, shelf stable, value added food products for consumers. We aim to reduce environmental impacts by using efficient technologies and applying best practices.
Key initiatives identified to reduce our environmental impact include:
- Replacing fluorescent lighting with LED lights to reduce electricity consumption and save cost
- Online water metering – this will enable more accurate reading and understanding for high-consumption areas across all facilities, and ensure monthly charges from municipality readings are correct
- Reducing steam losses by sheathing unlagged steam lines; and repairing damaged lagging on steam and condensate pipes. This will reduce heat loss and coal use, and therefore the carbon footprint. In addition, water and electrical meters will be installed to monitor and manage water and electrical use
- Installing tanks to collect waste vinegar, improving effluent quality and reducing the possibility of effluent penalties and water table damage
- A project to reuse bottle-washer water for external cleaning, preparation areas and all structural cleaning and staff facilities. This will help to reduce water use.
Water management
The quantity and quality of water is vital to our organisation to process products and as a key ingredient for specific products. In addition, given that the bulk of our products are for human consumption, water quality is imperative.
However, South Africa is classified as a water-stressed region which elevates water management to both a risk and critical success factor. We have several initiatives under way to improve our direct use of water, including the possible use of recycled and grey water at some facilities and water-saving schemes which have helped to reduce the volume of municipal water used each year.
In terms of indirect use, we have focused on enhancing agricultural water efficiency programmes with suppliers, specifically for water-intensive crops, such as tomatoes, beans, fruits and sugarcane.
The bulk of our water comes from municipal sources, and we have recently started monitoring consumption, as well as water availability and reliability by river basin and water management area source.
We also interact with the government, Department of Trade and Industry, municipalities and water boards. This enables the group to influence legislation, build partnerships in the industry and to learn from organisations using sustainable best practices that Tiger Brands can apply to internal processes.
The highest level of responsibility in terms of climate change lies with the board. Water security, use and cost are indicators monitored by the risk and sustainability committee of the board.
Carbon tax
In light of the imminent introduction of carbon tax, we continue to engage extensively with external parties to establish holistic, practical and affordable solutions to reduce our carbon emissions.
To ensure the group is adequately prepared, we are considering:
- The extent of the group’s potential liability, taking into account proposed tax-free thresholds
- The effect on suppliers that may be directly liable to pay the carbon tax and seek to pass on these costs
- Tiger Brands will apply pressure on suppliers to improve the fuel efficiency of their operations and reduce their GHG emissions.