Production
& Quality

Transport

Transportation is an important part of our business. We transport sugar beets from more than 15,000 farms to our factories, and processed sugar to and from storage and to our customers. According to a study we carried out in 2014, this internal transport accounts for five per cent of our total carbon emissions, a figure that is broadly in line with the rest of the sugar industry in Europe. We work continuously on streamlining our logistics in order to save energy and reduce our environmental impact.

Reducing emissions

One of the goals of our energy and climate strategy is to reduce CO₂ emissions from our supply chain, including emissions from transports. To achieve this, we are looking at every aspect of our logistics in order to make it more efficient. This includes reducing transport distances and lorry weights, increasing loads and using rail rather than road wherever possible. In Sweden, we have received the Green Cargo award for the ninth year running in recognition of our focus on using rail to transport sugar.

Measuring our emissions from transport

In order to manage our performance in cutting carbon emissions from transport, we carried out an extensive study in 2014. By using data from all our internal transports in the 2012/13 financial year, we were able to calculate our CO₂ emissions from these transports and use this as a baseline figure to measure future progress. Our baseline for the 2012/13 financial year is 0.026 tonnes CO2eq per tonne of sugar produced.

The study found that most of our emissions from internal transports are from beet transports, followed by transports of sugar from our factories to sugar storages.

Impact

Increasing beet loads

Around 20 per cent of our total beet transports are made by tractor. In order to reduce the number of individual beet transports in Germany, we have increased loading sizes from 16 tonnes to 26.5 tonnes by using trucks instead of tractors. This has reduced the number of beet transports we make each year by 40 per cent, saving 42,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Reducing beet transport distances

In Denmark and Sweden, we have reduced our average transport distance of beets by 12 km. Mainly from getting more beets from farmers that are located closer to us. This has reduced our CO₂ emissions from beet transports by 10 per cent between 2008 and 2012/13, while also increasing the amount of beets we transported by 14 per cent. In Nordzucker Group the average distance for our beet transports from farm to factory is 47 km.