Our responsibilities

Environment

Management of our environmental footprint is critical to the long-term sustainability of our business and is a core element of our strategic priority of achieving operational excellence. We seek to continually improve our environmental performance by asking ourselves the question “how can we do more with less?” This involves ongoing assessment of our manufacturing processes as well as our supply and distribution chains. In particular, we focus on our consumption, direct and indirect, of water, energy and waste. Importantly, this focus on environmental performance also benefits our financial performance through increased efficiency and waste reduction and is embedded in our GPS system which is being rolled out across the Group.

Glanbia operates a number of businesses each with distinct characteristics. The key focus of our environmental efforts, in particular in the context of water, energy and waste consumption are our manufacturing focused businesses including US Cheese, Customised Premix Solutions and two of our strategic partnerships, Southwest Cheese and GIIL. All of our manufacturing plants associated with these businesses meet the highest regulatory standards in their respective jurisdictions and the 2012 environmental highlights for each of these businesses are outlined here.

Business review

OUR RESPONSIBILITIES

US Cheese

Our wholly owned whey processing operations, the output of which is commercialised by Ingredient Technologies, are managed by the US Cheese team and therefore, from a manufacturing and environmental assessment perspective, all cheese and whey plants are evaluated on a combined basis. US Cheese includes three plants in total, all of which are located in Idaho; a cheese facility in Twin Falls, a cheese and whey facility in Gooding and a whey facility in Richfield.

US Cheese, in 2011, was the first of our business units to implement the GPS system and continues to generate significant benefits from the programme. In 2012, energy usage per litre of milk processed declined by 5% while water usage intensity, as measured by litres of water consumed per litre of milk processed declined by 8%.

Customised Premix Solutions

While energy and water consumption by Customised Premix Solutions is relatively low compared to our dairy processing facilities, it remains a focus of management and 2012 was a very successful year in this regard. Energy consumption per kilogram blended fell by 14% in 2012 which follows a 20% decline in 2011. Water consumption per kilogram blended fell by 3%.

Southwest Cheese

Southwest Cheese operates a single large scale plant in Clovis, New Mexico. Having been commissioned in 2006 and with a 40% capacity increase in 2010, the plant operates at a high level of efficiency. Nonetheless, energy and water consumption remains a key focus of management. In 2012, energy usage per litre of milk processed declined by 16% while the number of litres of water consumed per litre of milk processed declined by 11%.

Glanbia Ingredients Ireland (“GIIL”)

In 2012, GIIL, at its two processing facilities in Ballyragget and Virginia, continued to build on the significant progress made over recent years in respect of its energy and water consumption with declines of 1% and 2% respectively. Other key environmental highlights for GIIL in the year include:

• In October 2012, the Virginia plant, which had been awarded the Carbon Trust Standard Award in December 2011, won “Best in Relative Carbon Reduction 2011-12” at the International Carbon Trust Standard Bearers Conference in London. The concerted effort by management and staff at the Virginia plant had resulted in a 9% reduction in carbon emissions relative to plant output over the last three years.

• Following in the footsteps of our Virginia plant, in May 2012 the Ballyragget plant received the certificate of achievement from the Carbon Trust. In 2012, the Ballyragget plant set a target of becoming a Zero Waste to Landfill site. This plan is well underway with a 22% reduction in waste to landfill in 2012 and, with October 2012 being the first month in the plant’s history of zero waste to landfill, this target looks likely to be met for the full year 2013.