United Biscuits says 2011 was tops for green goals
The firm sent zero waste to landfill across all of its manufacturing sites; cut water use by 12%; and reduced carbon emissions by 6%, according to its annual report on sustainability progress.
Jeff van der Eems, chair of UB's sustainability committee, said: "Since launching our programme in 2008, we have made significant measurable progress against all of our targets.
“We have now broadened our ambition on sustainability and widened the scope to include the growing and sourcing of ingredients, the main drivers of UB's actual carbon footprint.”
Main drivers
The firm’s McVitie team recently joined forces with recycling expert TerraCycle to launch the McVitie Biscuit Wrapper Brigade. The scheme encourages consumers to return their used biscuit wrappers to be recycled.
“Very little mixed plastics recycling is currently carried out by local council kerb side collections, which results in millions of biscuit wrappers being sent to landfill,” said the firm.
United Biscuits’ green gains in numbers
- Zero waste to landfill
- 43% cut in water use since 2007
- 15% cut in the impact of packaging since 2003
- 18M lorry miles taken off the roads since 2005
- 100% sustainable palm oil used.
Source: United Biscuits
