Pioneer Foods’ group-wide commitment to sustainable value creation is founded on understanding and leveraging the interdependencies between economic viability and social and environmental responsibility, rather than attempting to trade these sustainability components off against each other.

The Group believes that contributing to a sustainable world is, in effect, contributing to a sustainable and successful business.

Pioneer Foods tracks its carbon footprint annually and is committed to minimising its impact on the environment.

Environmental sustainability initiatives

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

The Group monitors and manages its environmental impact by means of organisational targets and KPIs for energy and water usage as well as waste minimisation. Data is collated at site level and presented monthly to the Group executive committee.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

Energy savings are a business imperative, not only in order to achieve improved operational efficiencies and cost savings, but also as a reflection of the Group’s commitment to being a good corporate citizen. The Group’s partnership with an energy service provider continues to attain energy savings. In the 2018 financial year it recorded a saving of R26 million (2017: R21 million).

The energy cost reductions were delivered mainly through the following projects:

STEAM AND BOILER OPTIMISATION

Replaced existing boilers with coal boilers and optimised existing site boilers for cost savings. Pioneer Foods buys steam from an independent service provider. R30.1 million (since inception in 2014)

LIGHTING

Replaced existing lights with energy-efficient alternatives. R7.3 million (since inception in 2014)

TARIFFS

Switched sites to most cost-effective energy tariff. R18.6 million (since inception in 2014)

SOLAR

Installed solar PV panels at selected sites.R12.9 million (since inception in 2016)

WATER

The production of food items is a water-intensive process, so water conservation is a top priority for Pioneer Foods. We actively measure and, where viable, work to reduce the amount of water used per ton of product produced. In the 2018 financial year, the Group used 1.8 million m3 LA of water, which was down from the 1.9 million m3 used in the 2016/17 financial year.

CARBON EMISSIONS REPORTING

As a listed company Pioneer Foods annually participates in the CDP Disclosure, that then assesses companies and provides a score that measures Pioneer Foods ‘progress towards environmental stewardship, assesses the Group’s awareness of climate change issues, management methods, as well as progress action taken on climate change. The Group’s score in 2018 is a Band B which is an increase from Band C in 2017. Our internal data improvement initiatives have resulted in better data as well as initiatives at site level have all contributed towards the better score.