Food and Beverage

Pollution Prevention & Energy Efficiency Assessment

Challenge

Chudleigh’s is a privately owned Canadian company established in 1957 that operates a 100 acre farm in Milton, Ontario, with plans for a new 80,000 tree orchard in Otterville , as well as a commercial bakery (also located in Milton). The apples used in Chudleigh’s bakery are hand-picked Ontario apples provided by a network of 30 growers, and the first harvest from the Otterville orchard is scheduled for 2012.

In August of 2007, the bakery moved from an inefficient building to their current location housing state-of-the-art equipment operated by 200 full time staff, and a 28,000 ft2 addition to the facility is currently underway to accommodate increased production demands. Recognizing the strong link between Chudleigh’s main resource (apples) and environmental stewardship, Chudleigh’s desired to look for additional ways to operate their bakery operations in the most environmentally-friendly manner.

Although their new production facility and processing equipment were much more efficient than at their previous location, Chudleigh’s wanted to take the next step in their sustainability journey by identifying opportunities to operate their new facility as efficiently as possible by generating less waste, minimizing water and energy consumption, and conserving resources. Additionally, the new facility was subject to stringent sewer use bylaw parameters, which Chudleigh’s desired to comply with.

Due to the significant volume of fruit processed at the facility, the majority of Chudleigh’s sanitary sewer effluent had a high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) concentration (fruit has a very high BOD concentration) that exceeded the sewer use bylaw parameters.

Strategy

Through the BLOOM On-site Technical Assistance Program for Manufacturers (formerly known as the Toronto Region Sustainability Program), in 2010 Chudleigh’s hired Enviro-Stewards Inc. to conduct a pollution prevention (P2) and energy efficiency (E2) assessment of the facility.

The goal of the assessment was to identify opportunities for reducing water and energy consumption, minimizing waste, conserving resources, and reducing its sanitary sewer effluent loading to the sanitary sewer. BLOOM subsequently featured Chudleigh’s in a public case study detailing the assessment results (a PDF of the case study can be downloaded via the link following this case study).

The P2/E2 assessment was also an excellent opportunity to engage Chudleigh’s staff with the concepts of sustainability. For example, while working with Enviro-Stewards Chudleigh’s staff located and immediately repaired the faulty microwave cooling water valve. Similarly, a sketch of the system to reuse the water from ammonia cooling as microwave cooling water was drawn by a Chudleigh’s employee. This type of engagement with floor staff is an excellent method for gaining buy-in for opportunities and greatly increases the probability of implementation (since staff had a stake in the decision-making process).

Result

TARGET • Juice from apple peeling process entering floor drains (contributing to high BOD in effluent).

OPPORTUNITY • Install bins to capture juice to divert it from the sewer. ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT • 9 tonnes/year reduction in BOD loading.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT • $15,000/year savings, payback of < 1 month.

 

TARGET • Alternative disposal for waste peels from apple peeling process removed by waste hauler.

OPPORTUNITY • Send peels directly to compost or to animal feed.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT • 650 tonnes/year reduction in process waste.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT • $23,000/year savings, immediate payback.

 

TARGET • Microwave cooling water.

OPPORTUNITY • Fix malfunctioning cooling water valve so cooling water shuts off when the microwave is not in use.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT • 11,000 m3/year of water saved.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT • $21,000/year savings, immediate payback.

 

TARGET • Ammonia cooling water reuse.

OPPORTUNITY • Reuse water from ammonia cooling as microwave cooling water.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT • 1,100 m3/year of water saved.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT • $3,000/year savings, payback TBD.

 

TARGET • Sugar glaze spray nozzles.

OPPORTUNITY • Re-align spray nozzles to minimize over-spray.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT • 86 tonnes/year reduction in process waste.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT • $83,000/year savings, immediate payback.

 

TARGET • Sanitation water & make-up air.

OPPORTUNITY • Recover heat from ammonia chiller to pre-heat sanitation water and make-up air.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT • 44,000 m3/year of natural gas saved. • 73 tonnes/year reduction of GHG emissions.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT • $15,000/year savings, payback of 2 years.

 

TARGET • Freezer & cooler lights.

OPPORTUNITY • Install automatic door switch to turn on/off lights.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT • 19,000 kWh/year of electricity saved.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT • $2,000/year savings, payback of < 1 year.

 

TARGET • Lights in freezers.

OPPORTUNITY • Install high-efficiency lights.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT • 115,000 kWh/year of electricity saved.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT • $10,000/year savings, payback of 2 years.

 

Chudleigh’s has already begun implementing some of the above opportunities, such as diversion of peeler juice from floor drains, re-alignment of the sugar spray nozzles, and repairing the malfunctioning microwave cooling valve.

During 2010/2011, Chudleigh’s expanded its facility by 28,000 ft2. Once the expanded production facility is fully commissioned, Chudleigh’s plans to assess the remaining recommendations and develop an implementation schedule over a five year time-frame.

To promote continuous improvement, Chudleigh’s plans to develop signage and other materials to familiarize their entire staff with the concepts of sustainable manufacturing and to highlight significant environmental, economic, and social achievements of staff and of the organization as a whole. Focus Groups and Idea Boards have already been established where employees can participate in a focus group or post a process improvement or product idea to the Idea Board. Generous prizes are awarded to employees whose ideas are used.

Chudleigh’s continues to work with Enviro-Stewards and their own staff to implement the opportunities described in the P2/E2 assessment and to identify additional opportunities to improve the environmental, economic, and social performance of the company.

In December 2011 Chudleigh’s purchased a Sustainability Certificate from Enviro-Stewards for five BioSand water filters, which will provide 100,000 litres per year of clean drinking water to communities in South Sudan and avoid 15 tonnes per year of GHG emissions associated with boiling a portion of this water to make it safe to drink.

Website Links

www.trsp.ca/TRSP_cs_Chudleighs.pdf

www.bloomcentre.com

www.trsp.ca

www.enviro-stewards.com 

Food and Beverage

Winnipeg Oven Heat Recovery

Challenge

In 2008, the company committed to replacing its aging Winnipeg fresh bread and rolls facility. The original facility was almost 100 years old and suffered from high costs to modernize the building and equipment. Hydro pricing had been increasing on average 3% per year, and natural gas pricing was increasing 22% over the first 6 months of 2008. Continuing at these cost increases, the plant would find utility costs becoming a significant factor in overall plant profitability. Cost savings for operating the plant could be realized by recovering waste heat for other uses inside the facility, and the capital and operational costs of the installation of a statute regulated steam system could be avoided.

 

The main stakeholders in this project were upper management, our production staff, central engineering, Air Management Technologies and Manitoba Hydro.

Strategy

The main goal of the heat recovery system was to negate the need for equipment and infrastructure costs to operate a conventional 50 BHP steam boiler system with its 70% overall gas to heat efficiency, and replace this with a system that would recover waste heat that is effectively 100% efficient. Avoiding the boiler plant at full loading would displace the need to combust over 1.7M BTU/hr of natural gas, avoid 172 lbs/hr of 10% boiler blow down water, and negate a boiler water treatment program that would have required wastewater monitoring and potential treatment. In the spring of 2008, Central Engineering completed a detailed review of the statute requirements of P95-92, The Power Engineers Act, to determine what design options and constraints would be encountered to build a heat recovery system, and compared this to the needs of a conventional steam boiler system. Manitoba Hydro was consulted for interpretation of some clauses of the Act and it was determined that, from a capital standpoint, heat recovery was a lower cost option. MB Hydro expressed interest at this time to support, via incentives, the installation of a heat recovery system depending upon design performance.

 

Air Management Technologies was contacted in early summer 2008, to provide a proposal for heat recovery to be incorporated in the overall plant design. In consultation with the oven suppliers, AMF and Bake-Tech, and the dough proofing supplier, Bake-Tech, a design was formed based upon a similar installation done two years previously at another Weston’s facility in the USA. Detailed design calculations indicated that the full boiler loading could be avoided, resulting in a potential net savings of 113,178 m3 of natural gas per year, with electrical consumption being held the same for both the heat recovery and conventional boiler options. Usage of potable city water was not needed for the heat recovery system, so boiler blow down issues would be avoided. Once the heat recovery design was completed, Manitoba Hydro was contacted in late summer 2008 to engage their support for the design and the offering of potential incentives.

 

In the fall of 2008, the main challenges for the system to proceed were to convince upper management that the design would be as reliable as a conventional steam system, and that the cost of ownership would be favorable. The reliability of the design concept was dealt with by consulting the USA facility where the original heat recovery system had been in operation for over 2 years. Topics related to capacity, reliable operational time, system maintenance and complexity for plant staff were discussed during several conference calls, and compared very favorably to a steam system. The resulting positive comments were forwarded to upper management decision makers. Cost of ownership was a comparison of capital outlay, labor costs, chemical costs and water usage costs between the heat recovery and steam systems. While capital outlay was found to be similar, secondary operational costs were found to be avoidable in the case of water and chemicals, or reduced in natural gas consumption.

Result

In the spring of 2009, upon completion of the construction of the new facility, the heat recovery system was put on line. Upon start-up, the cold start loading of both production line proofers was carried by the heat recovery from the rolls line only, validating the main design requirement of displacing the need for a steam boiler. In addition, the commissioning showed that a surplus of heat would be available for other secondary uses in the future, as the bread oven recovery unit was not in use at this time. Data collection presented to Manitoba Hydro during the months of July-August 2009 and during November 2009 showed that the heat recovery actually achieved was equivalent to 60,783 m3 of natural gas per year and 67,093 m3 of natural gas per year respectively. Scaled to the use of a 70% steam system, this gives a savings range of avoided natural gas consumption of 86,832 to 95,847 m3 per year, which is 76% of the designed target. The full potential savings of 113,178 m3 from the design could not be achieved due to the changes in production at the facility. The model required 24 hrs per day continual operations to keep the circulating fluid hot, but plant operations of 20 hrs per day allowed for cool down of the heat recovery fluid. Additionally, we learned that review of statute requirements in tandem with the governing utility would allow for a more complete understanding of design constraints and opportunities.

 

The business case to drive the heat recovery system resulted from net reductions in required capital and operational costs. The installation of a steam system would have required additional money to construct a separate steam plant building, a water treatment plant for boiler water, a wastewater treatment plant for boiler blow down, and more complex distribution piping. These extra costs were estimated at over $400,000. Operational costs would have been escalated with a steam plant due to chemical treatment programs, additional water use, and stationary engineering requirements. Chemical treatment programs cost on average $5000/yr for our facilities and water use savings would be nominal. Reallocation of stationary engineering salaries towards more technical maintenance staff was the preferred staffing option. Proven gas savings of 86,000 to 95,000 m3 gas per year amounted to a minimum of $27,000/yr in natural gas savings for this installation. Manitoba Hydro supplied a net incentive of $29,000 to the project upon supply of the verified gas usage data. The overall cost of project was $242,000, with year one total savings of $461,000 for operations and capital with ongoing savings of $32,000, excluding repairs and maintenance costs of the avoided steam plant building. The project embedded in the company psyche that heat recovery is economically viable, and would be the method of choice for future replacements or green field installation of systems requiring steam.

 

Read more about the Winnipeg Facility in the Natural Resources Canada OEE publication.

Website Links

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/industrial/technical-info/library/newsletter/archives-2010/Vol-XIV-no-15-aug15.cfm?attr=24#a

Food and Beverage

Pepe’s Mexican Foods De-Stratification Fan

Challenge

In 2007, a cost effective solution to the dual problem of winter heating and summer cooling was needed at Weston Bakeries’ Pepe’s Mexican Foods facility. The plant was located in a leased property, limiting the options for modifications to the building to deal with heating and cooling issues. In the summer months, the installed HVAC system that serviced employee comfort at the packing zone was suffering from infiltration air from the loading dock area, making the system ineffective on hot days. In the winter, unitary gas fired heaters were used to deal with infiltration air during loading operations, but the installed capacity was insufficient to heat the area during the coldest winter months. Both of these situations led to severe employee discomfort, increased heating and cooling costs and lost productivity. Installation of additional cooling and heating capacity was not an option due to building lease constraints.

 

The main stakeholders in this project were our production staff, central engineering, Enbridge Gas and Arbon Equipment.

Strategy

The main goal of the de-stratification fan was to reduce the impact of infiltration air into the plant from the loading dock area. Air temperatures in the packing area and loading dock areas were to be set at a minimum of 18 Celsius in the winter, where at the loading dock doors, routine temperatures would drop to freezing resulting in icing up of the dock leveling plates. Summer cooling was to be accepted based upon reduced wet bulb readings around the wrapping area, where heat stress breaks were to be avoided. The ACGIH values for heat stress adopted by the company allows for a maximum wet bulb temperature of 29.6 Celsius for light duty work.

 

In the summer of 2007, central engineering did a design options review of each issue in turn. Winter heating options included re-working the loading dock mechanisms to weather seal them against air infiltration, installing additional unitary gas fired heaters, installing high speed roll up doors and strict enforcement of doors closed when not actively loading the trucks. The summer cooling options included, additional HVAC equipment, ceiling drop separation curtains and rotating labor breaks. Each equipment addition would add to the operational cost of the facility, as well as consume available capital.

 

The Conservation Projects contact at Enbridge Gas was consulted as to options that had not been considered for supplemental heating needs. In discussion, options such as infrared heating and increased insulation value doors were considered. An out-of-the-box option was also put forward in the guise of large diameter fans. These fans had been installed by commercial clients of Enbridge and it was indicated that they were gaining more popular use. These fans were incented via the Gas Saver Program from Enbridge and this gained our interest as a low cost option to deal with our heating needs.

 

Arbon Equipment was contacted in mid summer 2007, to provide details on large diameter slow rotation fans that are designed to de-stratify large areas. During review of the Revolution Fans offered by Arbon, it was apparent that both heating and cooling issues could be handled. The attached figure from ASHRAE 55 section 5.2.3 tabulates the relationship between air speed and apparent cooling, in effect the “wind chill effect”, and was referenced by Arbon as the reasoning behind the summer benefits of these fans. Enbridge Gas was contacted with our intent to install an Arbon Revolution 24 foot diameter fan in July 2007, and they offered incentives under the Gas Saver Program.

 

In the fall of 2007, the main challenge for the fan installation to proceed was to convince leadership that the design would be valid and offset a conventional gas heating solution. Validity of the design was supported by numerous successful installations in other facilities in the upper USA and also in Ontario, and was openly endorsed by the conservation contact at Enbridge Gas with a pre installation commitment for incentives. This would limit the funding required by the company to get this first trial fan installed. Fall back upon a conventional gas fired unit heater system was little risk due to immediate availability of gas fired unitary heaters.

Result

In the fall of 2007, a 24 foot diameter Revolution Fan was installed half-way between the loading docks and the packaging area. Upon start up, it was found that the wind chill effect provided significant comfort cooling in the immediate areas of the fan. A secondary effect was realized in that the down draft of air and donut shaped air flow of the fan did act as an air dam between the loading docks and the packaging area. This resulted in the AC air in the immediate packaging areas not being displaced away from the employees. A further effect was to wind chill the loading dock employees from early September heat. Mid winter testing of de-stratification was planned and the results below found that over 10 Celsius temperature rises could be had using the de-stratification fan only, with the added benefit of turning off the four unitary gas fired dock heaters that were in place; each dock heater was approximately 100,000 Btu/hr in capacity.

 

In January of 2008, two temperature trials verified the de-stratification effects and temperature rise at floor level by using this fan. In one trial, the fan only was used for 24hrs to heat the floor level areas, and in the second test only unitary heaters were used with the fan off and locked out. Temperatures were checked at the loading dock doors and between the packing area and the large fan. The results were normalized against actual outdoor temperatures at the local airport to remove the possibility of a warmer day skewing results. The attached graphs show that with the fan on the temperatures at floor level were increased from 10 Celsius to almost 20 Celsius, and further into the plant, towards the packing areas, the floor temperatures were increased from 14 Celsius to over 25 Celsius.

 

The business case to drive use of de-stratification resulted from net reductions in capital required and operational costs. The installation of supplementary summer cooling AC and winter unitary gas heaters would have required significant structural roof reinforcement, additional operating utility costs, and special permission from the building owner to do modifications to the structure. The summer AC costs were estimated at $5000 for structural reinforcement and over $15,000 for installation of 15 tons of AC, with the cooling season hydro cost of $3700. Winter heating costs were estimated at $7500 per unit heater added, where it was estimated two units were needed and consuming $5300 of natural gas. Total year one costs of the conventional approach would have been $36,500 with the annual utility bill increased by $9000. Installed, the fan cost $8800, with Enbridge’s Gas Saver program incentive valued at $5600. Utility use of a de-stratification fan is approximately $290 in the cooling year and approximately $400 in the heating year, without the need for natural gas. Total year one costs were $3890, with the annual utility bill increasing by $690. The fan would save the plant over 37,000 kWhrs and 18,000 m3 of natural gas per year.

 

This trial project proved the validity of using large diameter fans to both provide seasonal heating and cooling effects to our factory floors. Subsequent to this initial installation, fans have been added to three other Ontario Weston factories to off set conventional remediation using the AC and unitary heater solution.

 

 

Food and Beverage

Tetra Pak's Tetra Recart Provides Eco-Minded Packaging Alternative to Cans and Jars

Challenge

Tetra Pak changed the face of packaging over 60 years ago when it introduced aseptic (shelf-stable) carton packaging for milk. This innovation was driven by the need for a packaging product that could be transported and stored without refrigeration. Today, Tetra Pak continues to innovate to meet the ever-changing needs of customers, retailers, and the end consumer. Now more than ever before, consumers are seeking more sustainable solutions, including nutritious products that are packaged responsibly.

True to the company’s legacy to develop and manufacture innovative packaging solutions, Tetra Pak has produced a carton that has successfully met the challenge to stock the stagnant canned food aisle with a viable alternative that is lightweight, recyclable and made mainly from a renewable resource.

Strategy

For Tetra Pak, innovation is about renewing and refreshing as much as it is about creating something new. Tetra Pak first conceptualized a “retortable carton” – which enables filled projects to be sterilized within the package – years ago. At that time, the industry and consumers simply could not envision it.

Today, Tetra Pak is capitalizing on the stagnant canned food aisle with its ground-breaking retortable carton packaging system: Tetra Recart. The Tetra Recart package fulfills the increasing demands of consumers by offering an alternative to cans for entire food categories including vegetables, soups, tomatoes, beans and even pet food.

Result

Tetra Pak’s Tetra Recart provides an innovative and sustainable option for customers, retailers and consumers alike. Tetra Recart differs from traditional carton packages in order to withstand the rigours of the retorting process. It is optimized to work with batch retorting systems, which sterilize the package and its contents simultaneously using steam and hot water under pressure. The product inside is typically heated to more than 130°C during retorting – a temperature required to render the contents commercially sterile and therefore shelf-stable over a determined span of time.

To understand the innovation of Tetra Recart, it is important to acknowledge Tetra Pak’s commitment to unlocking business and environmental value across the entire packaging lifecycle. Tetra Recart is a sustainable alternative to canned food. It is made mainly from paper (66 per cent), a renewable and renewed resource. The shape and weight of a Tetra Recart package makes it exceptionally efficient to transport. Unlike conventional steel cans, Tetra Recart is transported as flat cartons to the filling factory.

As a result, one standard truck with empty Tetra Recart cartons has the carrying capacity of nine standard trucks with empty cans. It also uses one-third the packaging to deliver the same amount of product. In addition to steel cans, Tetra Recart is also a viable alternative to glass jars:

• For every one million cans, Tetra Recart uses 32 tonnes less packaging, and
• For every one million jars, Tetra Recart uses 182 tonnes less packaging.

At the end of its life, Tetra Recart enters a new phase that will see it transformed and begin anew. With a 94 per cent national access rate, cartons are recyclable nearly everywhere in Canada. Recycled cartons are often turned into tissue or other useful and valuable paper products, dramatically reducing the carbon footprint of this innovative packaging system. In addition, in 2010, Tetra Pak partnered with a number of corporations and local government organizations to collectively provide $1-million in seed capital to Groupe RCM, a recycling facility in Yamachiche Québec. The facility launched a line that accepts all cartons (including Tetra Recart), as well as plastic shopping bags and cellophane to make a wide variety of plastic products including: flower pots, railway ties, guard rail posts, pallets and plastic lumber.

As a technological pioneer of the packaging industry Tetra Pak has always paid close attention to how society consumes food and beverages, and the behavioural and cultural shifts that reveal opportunities. Tetra Recart embodies the transformation and innovation that Tetra Pak brings to the marketplace to address consumer needs.

Tetra Pak Canada Ltd. was the winner of the 2011 GLOBE Award for Best Green Consumer Product.

Food and Beverage

Frito Lay – Zero Emission Trucks

Challenge

As Canada’s largest snack food manufacturer, Frito Lay Canada (FLC) sells millions of bags of product each year. These bags are transported to thousands of retail customers each day through the company’s extensive direct to store delivery network. To service customers from coast-to-coast, FLC operates one the country’s largest private fleets, which accounts for a significant portion of FLC’s carbon footprint. For many years, the company has been committed to continually upgrading improving its delivery vehicle fleet with new and innovative technologies to support its overall supply chain environmental sustainability goals.

Strategy

FLC has made great strides in making its delivery fleet more efficient by improving its existing trucks (improvements include anti-idling mechanisms, more efficient cabin heating systems, skylights in the trailers to reduce the need for artificial lighting, etc), introducing new lighter-weight, more efficient Sprinter vehicles, and by optimizing delivery routes to reduce kilometers driven. Due to these efforts, since 2005 FLC has avoided growing its fleet by 250 vehicles and has actually reduced its fleet size by 55 vehicles while sales have grown.

In June 2010, the company announced its latest fleet innovation with the introduction of zero-emission, all-electric trucks into its delivery fleet. These were made possible through a partnership with Transport Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, making FLC the country’s first food manufacturer to introduce fully-electric vehicles into its delivery fleet.

The six electric vehicles are based at FLC’s major distribution centres across the country – three in Brampton (ON), one in Ottawa (ON), one in Surrey (BC) and one in Laval (QC). Each of the six zero-emission electric vehicles has a 60 kilometer per day range, which meets the daily kilometer needs of the majority of the routes from these distribution centres.

The zero-emission electric vehicles were made by Smith Electric Vehicles, the world’s leading manufacturer of electric vehicles. The six electric vehicles are powered by electricity from the grid, offset by renewable energy credits, and at the end of the battery lifespan (3-5 years or longer) they will be returned to Smith Electric for recycling. As the company purchases renewable energy credits to offset the usage of these vehicles, the electric trucks operate with zero on-road carbon emissions. They also produce zero pollutants and particulate emissions, unlike traditional fossil fuel engines.

The fully electric vehicles feature a 120 kW induction motor that produces virtually no engine noise. A 40 kWh battery pack gives the vehicle a 60 km range and regenerative braking charges the battery while the truck decelerates. The top speed of the electric trucks is governed at 80 km/h to help maximize its range, which makes the vehicles suitable for urban delivery routes.

Result

The new zero-emission electric trucks are now servicing customers in the Brampton, Ottawa, Surrey, and Laval areas. The government, media and public response to these vehicles has been overwhelmingly positive.

Frito Lay Canada will continue its journey to improve its delivery fleet. As electric trucks are not suitable for every area of the country and every route type, the company will continue to work towards a fleet that’s comprised of several types of highly-efficient vehicles that meet its various route needs and driving distances across the country.

Website Links

• FLC Environmental Sustainability Website

• Soundbite from Marc Guay, FLC President

• Soundbite from Helmi Ansari, FLC Sustainability Leader

• FLC Fleet Case Study

Food and Beverage

Canadian Springs – Hybrid Electric Truck Case Study

Challenge

To lower emissions from delivery trucks.

1. Canadian Springs is Canada’s leading provider of direct delivery 18L bottled water and plumbed in filtration systems for homes and offices nationally. The company wishes to emphasize that it fully supports the highest grade of public tap water infrastructure with free and easy access for all, it simply sees a necessity and desire for an alternative drinking water supply for many reasons. Our drinking water products are valued by our customers for areas where tap water is not easily accessible and also as a cleaner alternative to tap water because tap water contains unwanted chemicals such as chlorine and its bi-products, lead, copper, rust, VOCs and many others.

2. Each Canadian Springs large format returnable refillable bottle is used an average of 55 times and carries 1,000L of water in its lifetime before the bottle and its cap are recycled by the company into other useful products. Complete life cycle analysis of 18L water bottles reveals that they have a surprisingly low carbon footprint approximately equal to that of plumbed in tap water filtration systems for equal volumes of water used (this includes all energy inputs of bottle manufacturing, filling, delivering and returning bottles, washing, refilling and recycling for the life of the bottle). Both 18L bottles and tap water filtration systems have a total carbon footprint approximately five times that of tap water, depending on the region of the country. This is in stark contrast to single use bottled water which has a carbon footprint from 30 to 150 times (or more) than that of tap water. A recent independent Oregon Department of Environment study roughly confirms these numbers.

3. Downtown Vancouver trucks delivering Canadian Springs 18L bottles or tap water filters only travel an average of 15,000 km per year, but do 15,000 deliveries per year of an average of 5 bottles or 3 filters per delivery.

4. Having said this, 83% of all company emissions are due to its trucking activities. Addressing truck emissions would therefore have the greatest impact in achieving the company’s goal of becoming the cleanest beverage company in the world. Using large format returnable refillable bottles and supplying filtration systems are already relatively low impact ways of supplying clean drinking water, but addressing truck emissions would further lower that impact.

5. Canadian Springs employs the three Rs in everything it does: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. We want customers to carry a sport bottle with spring or filtered water rather than purchasing single use bottled water. Get in the mindset of using refillables for all your beverages while you’re at it.

Strategy

Hybrid electric Class 7 trucks.

1. All fuel efficient and exhaust after treatment products were considered as possible candidates for reducing truck emissions. Some options appeared to have better potential than others, but all options were limited to those that can be applied to the duty cycle and type of truck Canadian Springs uses; Class 7 beverage body delivery trucks in urban environments. For all-around benefit and ease of use, it was settled that the newly available hybrid electric trucks for Class 7s was the best option.

2. After joining the Vancouver based Electric Vehicles Buyers Group in 2008, the company learned of other fleets that wanted to get greener trucks but needed help in doing so. As opposed to the USA, there is no standard Canadian program in place for fleets to access grants or subsidies for purchasing lower emission vehicles.

3. With the help of the Fraser Basin Council, a total of eight fleets made a collective one time application for funding to help purchase the hybrids because they are significantly more expensive (the incremental cost is 50% more than a standard vehicle). The applications were successful and the Fraser Basin Council got funding for 50% of the incremental cost of the hybrid platform from the BC Ministry of Environment. Thank you Fraser Basin Council.

Result

Understanding route duty cycles is key to maximizing savings.

1. After testing the new hybrids on various routes, it soon became apparent that fuel savings (and therefore emissions) are dependent on route terrain and duty cycles.

2. Results show maximum savings with urban stop and start routes. Some routes have generated up to 45% fuel reductions compared to the same route using regular trucks. Other routes with fewer stops and more highway travel generate fuel savings of only 5%. All routes do generate fuel savings using hybrids.

3. Payback: with seven year full maintenance leases the payback for using hybrids is unclear for all routes but is becoming increasingly clear for high density urban routes. Average fuel savings of approximately 30-40% on the high density routes will cover the increased cost of purchasing the hybrids. These trucks will both save the company money and reduce fuel use and emissions significantly.

• For high density routes fuel savings are expected to average 37%
• Emissions reductions for these routes: hydrocarbons 60%, carbon monoxide 50%, and nitrogen oxide 40%

 

Other emission reduction programs Canadian Springs has employed:

1. Reduced idling

• Average downtown trucks had 30%-40% idle time, now it is less than 5%.

2. Reduced speed

• Reducing speed from 120km/hr to 80km/hr saves 20% in fuel use.

3. Tire pressure and engine maintenance

• Proper tire pressure and engine maintenance reduce fuel use by another 10%

Driver training is the key to success!

Food and Beverage

Nestle Water Canada – Waste Management

Challenge

To continuously reduce our packaging and energy usage and improve waste reduction in our operations while maintaining quality, safety and customer services standards represents our major challenge. These improvements will help to drive efficiencies, shed costs and reduce the impact on the environment. Additionally, they will ensure continuous improvements in recyclable packaging and the diversion of packaging from landill, post consumer use.

Strategy

There are five strategies in place to assure the Company’s leadership in the areas of waste and material management:

• Use 100% recyclable packaging materials for every product produced, whether the bottle, the wrap or the tray;
• Reduce packaging material use by working with suppliers on design changes that maintain functionality (i.e., bottle topload and sideload strength for shipping)
• Challenge internal teams to improve on waste reduction and internal recycling levels
• Increase recycling of products by working with government and industry on public spaces recycling, ICI recycling, multi-residential recycling and public education
• Earn environmental certification from the world’s leading standards associations to confirm energy reduction achievements

Result

Nestlé Waters Canada only uses 100 percent recyclable PET to produce its bottles, 100 percent recyclable HDPE to produce its caps, 100 percent recyclable PET to produce its wrap and 100 percent recyclable cardboard to produce its trays. All residential recycling programs in Canada have cardboard recycling programs in place and 93 percent of them support plastics recycling. The Company has reduced the amount of plastic in its 500ml. single-use plastic bottles by 30 percent since 2000, which has reduced the amount of energy the Company uses by 30 percent and the amount of greenhouse gases it produces by 22 percent. Use of the lighter 12.2 gram bottle has saved 4.59 million kilograms of PET resin annually in Canada, thus significantly reducing its carbon footprint. Nestle Waters Canada will reduce the size of its packaging by another 27 percent in 2010 with the next evolution of the Eco-Shape bottle. It is important to reduce the amount of plastic in our containers because the bottle represents 55 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. Nestlé Waters Canada also produces all of its single-serve 500ml. bottles inhouse, eliminating 20,000 trailor loads of empty plastic bottles and reducing greenhouse gas emissions annually by 12,000,000 kilograms.

Nestlé Waters Canada and its industry partners pioneered public spaces recycling in Canada, entering into a $7.2 million, three-year agreement with the Government of Quebec and municipalities across that province in June 2008 to collect and recycle plastic beverage containers and other recyclable materials in public spaces. The program is capturing an estimated 85 percent of recyclables in public spaces, including plastic, glass, aluminum and paper, according to program management Gaia Environmental. Beginning in June 2009, Nestlé Waters Canada and its industry partners funded a two-phase pilot public spaces recycling program in Sarnia, Ontario, that, will be presented to the Province of Ontario with the objective of establishing the initiative across the province as a complement to the blue box system. The first phase saw 76 percent of plastic beverage containers, including bottled water, diverted from landfill. The study also confirmed that these containers represent just 5 percent of the public spaces waste stream. Across Canada, according to the provincial stewards responsible, plastic beverage containers account for one-fifth of 1 percent of the waste stream. Plastic water bottles account for 40 percent of that figure or .2 percent. If the Canadian bottled water industry disappeared tomorrow, there would be no appreciable reduction in the amount of recyclable materials going into the waste stream. Recycling rates across the country have improved by approximately 10 percent over the last five years.

Nestlé Waters Canada recently received ISO 14001 certification, which recognizes that the Company has established sustaining and continuously improving environmental management systems, specifically in the areas of energy efficiency, water conservation and waste management programs. The Company must set annual targets and achieve same to maintain its certification. For example, it has set targets that will see a reduction in energy usage by 17.1 percent, a reduction in water consumption by 4.1 percent and the recycling of 96 percent of its refuse this year. The Company reduced water consumption in 2008 by 10 percent and recycled 95 percent of its waste.

Food and Beverage

Coca-Cola

Challenge

Consumers are skeptical of green marketing – 70% think “green” is a marketing tactic (Mintel “American Living” Jan ’08 and “Green Marketing” May ’08). The messaging must be authentic, clear and measurable.

Strategy

Result

Food and Beverage

Frito Lay – Fleet

Challenge

An efficient vehicle fleet can have a profound positive impact on the environmental sustainability of an organization. Frito Lay Canada (FLC) has one of the largest private fleets in Canada. In turn, the vehicle fleet accounts for a large portion of FLC’s carbon footprint. The company is continually improving the efficiency of its fleet to reduce carbon emissions and minimize operating costs.

Strategy

Result

Food and Beverage

Maple Leaf Foods

Challenge

Rendering

Rothsay, a member of Maple Leaf Foods, is Canada’s largest rendering company and has been in business for over 50 years. The company operates six processing facilities across Canada that collect and recycle over 700 million kilograms of waste material each year. This waste is rendered and transformed into tallow, oils and proteins for use in animal feed, soaps, cleaners, cosmetics and Biodiesel.

Biodiesel

In 2001, Rothsay began to build and operate a small pilot plant in our Montreal Rendering facility producing biodiesel using recycled materials such as inedible fats and used cooking oil. During this time Rothsay’s Biodiesel was used to support additional demonstration projects such as Montreal’s BioBus and BioMer projects.

By 2006 Rothsay had built and commissioned Canada’s first commercial-scale biodiesel plant with a rated capacity of approximately 30 million litres per year. By 2008 the facility was producing at full capacity.

Today – the plant is producing some of the world’s purist biodiesel from recycled materials and is running well above nameplate capacity at a rate of 45 million litres per year.

A Highly Integrated and Sustainable Business Model

What separates Rothsay Biodiesel from other Biofuel producers is our highly integrated and sustainable business model. As a member of Maple Leaf Foods, we span the value chain from our Live Hog and Poultry operations, to our primary processing and rendering operations.

Maple Leaf Foods raises live hogs and poultry for processing at Maple Leaf facilities around the country.
Of the animals processed for consumption only a portion of these are considered edible: 50% of a cow, 60% of a hog and 72% of a chicken; the remainder, some 2.5 billion kilograms in Canada annually, are recaptured by the rendering industry and converted to other value added products.

Rothsay Biodiesel has an uninterrupted supply of raw materials using the tallow and recycled cooking oils produced at its rendering facilities to produce Biodiesel, a clean, renewable low-carbon alternative to petroleum diesel. By co-locating our biodiesel plant at existing operations we are able to further lower our environmental footprint through more efficient use of existing resources.

We are also uniquely positioned to be able to integrate forward in the value chain by utilizing biodiesel blends in our own commercial truck fleet. We use biodiesel to power 127 heavy duty commercial trucks at three locations year round with blends ranging between 2%-100%. This year alone these trucks have traveled 4.4 million Kilometers at an average blend of 12%, allowing us to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 782,000 kilograms.

Fueling our own truck fleet with lower-carbon alternatives like biodiesel not only improves our environmental footprint, but also those of our customers. By having Rothsay trucks pick-up our customers’ waste products, our clients are given a unique opportunity to improve the sustainability of their operations as well.

Strategy

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Result

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