Transport
Transportation is an important part of our business. We transport sugar beets from close to 13,000 growers to our factories, and processed sugar to and from storage and to our customers. According to a study we carried out in 2017, internal transports - not including customers, 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 in our value 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 carbon footprint study in 2017. By using data from all our internal transports between 2013 - 2015, we were able to calculate our CO2 emissions from these transports.
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. Between the Carbon Footprint and a previous transport study, we can see that we have reduced the emissions from our beet transports by 6,6% from 2012 – 2016.