Danone introduces global energy excellence programme

Danone has launched a new global energy excellence programme, called Re-Fuel Danone, to drive energy efficiency across its sites worldwide.

The programme will see the company transform the global energy footprint of its facilities and make its operations more agile, energy- and cost-efficient, resilient and sustainable.

Re-Fuel Danone will use digital innovation and engineering expertise to drive energy efficiency and accelerate the company’s decarbonisation journey. It will also expand its partnerships with local renewable energy providers to boost energy resilience and work with communities where it operates.

The programme aims to improve Danone’s energy efficiency by 30% by 2025 and increase its use of renewable energies such as biogas, biomass, solar and hydrogen. In addition, it will meet 100% of electricity requirements – up from 68.5% today – from renewable sources and half of all energy will come from renewable sources by 2030.

By 2030, Danone says it aims to reduce the company’s Scope One and Two emissions by a minimum of 42%.

Vikram Agarwal, chief operations officer at Danone, said: “Energy is a massive contributor to how we make our category-leading products, but it also has an environmental impact. That’s why we are transforming the energy footprint of our sites globally through this energy excellence programme.”

He continued: “We will do this under three pillars – energy efficiency, investing in more energy efficient process technology and upweighting renewable energy sources. It will make us more sustainable, more agile, more cost-efficient and more resilient, it also adds to how we deliver for our customers and consumers and helps us reconnect performance and purpose, so marks further progress on our strategy to Renew Danone.”

Danone said that to improve energy and cost efficiency, a number of measures, including scaling up its real-time management tools, will be initiated. The business will also “conduct further energy assessments for its sites and evaluate newer and more energy efficient manufacturing processes to replace existing installations”.