What it Means
As a leading food company, we recognise and acknowledge the need for climate action across our entire supply chain, and quickly. This involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions from our operations, our supply chain and our products while also building resilience and adapting to the impacts of a changing climate. We aim to support global efforts to limit warming to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels.
Our goal is to achieve net zero emissions by 2040. As part of this goal we have a target to switch to 100% renewable electricity by 2025 and we are accelerating our decarbonisation action plans.
Renewable electricity represents all scope 2 emissions. Since January 2021, our New Zealand operations achieved 100% renewable electricity for all GF sites, depots and offices via the purchase of renewable electricity certificates. From July 2021 – December 2023 we also achieved this in Australia via the purchase of renewable electricity certificates. For our renewable electricity target in Australia, we are reviewing our approach to focus on how we can transition our own operations, via insetting, in the place of offsetting where possible. We look forward to sharing this plan in 2024 once it is finalised.
Moving to renewable electricity in Australia and New Zealand more than halves the greenhouse gas emissions from those operations. Renewable electricity provides a key foundation for our transition to net zero through a focus on energy productivity, electrification and a transition to renewable fuels.
Importantly, we recognise that our impact does not stop at our factory gate which is why scope 3 emissions is part of our net zero target. This involves emissions reductions across the entire supply chain including transport and on-farm emissions.
What We’ve Achieved
In the last five years our New Zealand factories reduced their scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 17%. In 2020, we invested over $500,000 on a national lighting replacement program in Australia. The installation of solar panels in Fiji has generated over 1000 MWh of renewable electricity since 2018 and in January 2021 we moved to 100% renewable electricity for our entire New Zealand operations (factories, offices and depots) through the purchasing of renewable electricity certificates (Certified Renewable Energy | Meridian Energy).
What’s Next
Our approach involves taking action now where the path forward is clear, investing in understanding the emission profile and reduction opportunities for our inputs, operations and products. We will also build capability and develop strategies for managing a changing climate. We have a pipeline of emission reduction initiatives planned in the short term including completing the roll out of 79 hybrid vehicles for our sales fleet in Australia and capital projects in NZ targeting annual emission reductions of over 1,000 tonnes CO2-e.
To find out more about our climate actions goals please click here.
