< Previous20 Business Link www.blmforum.net ENVIRONMENTAL AND WASTE MANAGEMENT © stock.adobe.com/EwaStudio Responding to the crisis www.blmforum.net Business Link 21 ENVIRONMENTAL AND WASTE MANAGEMENT Reducing environmental waste and greener business has been a buzzword for years but a warmer climate and a Labour government push back towards Net Zero emissions is finally making it a reality. A rguably the first priority in conducting any environmental management analysis is to start with the wider supply chain before macroing in on specifics. One of the most carbon intensive areas of any company’s supply chain is transport and distribution, and so improvements here must be a critical part of any environmental management. Simple solutions, such as more efficiently designed packaging to allow more to be loaded into a single shipment, can have a big impact. However, reducing these emissions is not only simply a case of swapping one fleet out for another, as many of the alternatives to fossil-fuel powered transportation are no way near close to taking over. Hybrid and electric vehicles have become more commonplace, with major food and beverage players adopting them into their fleet, but they aren’t without their setbacks. Aside from the initial investment involved, perhaps the biggest downsides to these vehicles is charge time, the distance they can travel on a single charge and the amount and accessibility of charging infrastructure. Although stopping to refuel adds time to a journey, it is a relatively quick process compared with charging an electric vehicle. As the technology currently stands, batteries take time to charge, time where a truck or van is spent doing nothing while food and beverage products sit idle in the back. It’s worth noting, however, that battery and charging technology is constantly improving and charge 22 Á22 Business Link www.blmforum.net ENVIRONMENTAL AND WASTE MANAGEMENT times, especially, continue to fall. Despite these advances, a lack of charging infrastructure remains an issue. While charge points are becoming more familiar sights across towns, cities and service stations, it’s hardly the rival of petrol stations. Although the government has invested in infrastructure, we’re a long way off a tipping point where electrical vehicles overtake petrol and diesel. Although electric and hybrid vehicles aren’t a feasible solution for many companies looking to make their fleets more sustainable, they do present an ideal opportunity for last mile logistics. This refers to the last leg of the journey, where products leave the final warehouse or distribution centre and are delivered to stockists, suppliers and retailers. Typically taking place in urban areas, electric vehicles are ideally suited to fulfil this crucial final step - helping to reduce a company’s total emissions output. Focussing on a company’s in-house operations now, and one of the biggest changes is the integration of renewable energy into the manufacturing process. More and more companies are signing virtual power purchase agreements, in which a company agrees to purchase power at a negotiated price from a wind or solar project over a predetermined number of years. Elsewhere, companies are installing solar panels at their own sites to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. Another area where companies can focus their environmental efforts is in the avoidance of food waste during manufacturing. There will always be some wastage involved in the production of food and beverage products, but this can be minimised by designing the production process in such a way where lost product is incorporated back in the mix or production line. Examples where companies have done just this include pasta production and the depositing of pre-grated cheese onto pizzas. For food that is wasted, or falls on the factory floor, an alternative to landfill is anaerobic digestors which, in turn, produces renewable biogas. Although food and drink makers are required by law to ensure their machinery, equipment and operations are kept clean and hygienic, there’s also the environment to consider. Of course, industrial cleaning products are often www.blmforum.net Business Link 23 ENVIRONMENTAL AND WASTE MANAGEMENT © stock.adobe.com/PhotoGranary themselves harmful to the environment, but water usage is one of the biggest issues here. According to the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), cleaning can account for as much as seventy per cent of a site’s entire water usage. This brings additional costs such as labour, downtime, lost materials, cleaning chemicals, and extra energy expended for heating and pumping. Optimisation requires a change in cleaning routine that, over time, will not only help to slash water supply bills, but also reduce the volume of concertation in effluent. There’s a chain of thought that claims a reduction in water compromises hygiene requirements. But this simply isn’t true, with a number of ways of minimising water usage whilst also maintaining hygiene levels and, in some cases, even improving them. Minimising wastewater should be a priority to food and beverage companies, not just in terms of cleaning, but right across the supply chain. In many cases, wastewater is simply outsourced to a processing plant or treatment facility, but now the onus is not on how best to dispose of wastewater, but how best to put it to use. But before this wastewater can be fed back into the supply chain, it first needs to undergo a vigorous process (or several processes) to purify and filter it. The most ubiquitous technologies in achieving this are distillation, absorption, electrolysis, reverse osmosis, and filtration - the latter of which is the most commonly used thanks to its cost-effective nature and overall reliability. Yet treating and purifying wastewater with ultraviolet (UV) light boats longevity, efficiency, affordability and eco-friendly credentials. Unlike some of the other solutions available, UV is an environmentally friendly alternative and results in no disinfection by-products. Moreover, its electrical needs are low, meaning it can run constantly. It has even been proven to deactivate all the microorganisms attributed to spoilage. Environmental management is a critical undertaking for food and beverage businesses, but there’s no one single approach, but rather, it’s important to adopt a multi-faceted exploration of the supply chain, from end to end, to identify areas where improvements must be made. 24 Business Link www.blmforum.net HUMBER BANK The most carbon intensive region in the country, the Humber has its sights set on becoming the UK’s first low carbon industrial cluster. T he UK’s Energy Estuary, home to major ports, key to the nation’s engineering, chemicals, food processing and digital industries, and pivotal in renewables and decarbonisation, the Humber is a region vital to the success of the country, and one that is transforming right before our eyes. Historically one of the biggest ports and industrial centres in the world, essential to the UK economy by contributing £18bn annually and supporting 360,000 jobs, the Humber has long held a deep industrial and manufacturing heritage. This, however, has made it the most carbon intensive region in the country, with its capabilities in chemicals, concrete, steel, and energy producing significant industrial emissions — but things are changing. Organisations across the region, as well as outside investors, have placed a keen eye on the opportunity for industrial Embracing industrial decarbonisation www.blmforum.net Business Link 25 HUMBER BANK © stock.adobe.com/Elfed Samuel/Wirestock decarbonisation, positioning it as the epicentre of a green revolution, and the location for embracing the net zero challenge. The Humber has become home to the largest decarbonisation project in Europe via Drax Power Station, held the first refinery in the UK to produce Sustainable Aviation Fuel at scale, hosts the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, and continues to be the centre of critical initiatives from carbon capture and storage (CCS) to low carbon hydrogen. Assisting these strides are public and private sector projects such as Humber Zero, Viking CCS, the East Coast Cluster, and the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan. Disappointing news came this year, however, as a report released in June indicated that despite private sector ambition continuing to be strong for the green transition in the Humber, limited government support has resulted in project delays. The impact of this is expected to be slower decarbonisation and uptake of key technologies, such as CCS and hydrogen. On the other hand, the research suggests a more positive longer-term outlook, where the Humber can still reach net zero by 2040. This positivity extends to a wave of steps forward for important green projects in the region in 2024, with Equinor’s H2H Saltend being granted planning 26 Á26 Business Link www.blmforum.net HUMBER BANK permission by the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, for example. H2H Saltend is a 600-megawatt low carbon hydrogen production plant with carbon capture, one of the first of its kind and scale to be granted planning permission in the UK, helping to establish the Humber as a hub for low carbon hydrogen while reducing carbon emissions. Expected to be operational at the end of the decade and sited at the energy intensive Saltend Chemicals Park, to the east of Hull, H2H Saltend will help to cut the park’s emissions by up to one third. To achieve this, low carbon hydrogen will be used in chemical processes by both Saltend-based and other companies nearby, as well as directly replacing natural gas in several industrial facilities, decreasing the carbon intensity of their products. H2H Saltend will be a catalyst for the wider decarbonisation of the Humber, helping to link regional CO2 pipelines from Easington in East Yorkshire across northern Lincolnshire and to Drax in North Yorkshire. The infrastructure will capture and transport carbon dioxide for safe sub-sea storage as part of the East Coast Cluster development. Multiple projects along this pipeline route - including H2H Saltend, Drax BECCS and Keadby Carbon Capture Power Station - now have planning consent. The Drax BECCS project secured approval in January to convert two biomass units at Drax Power Station to the carbon removals technology bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Drax Power Station currently has four biomass generating units and produces around 4% of the country’s power and 9% of its renewable electricity. Drax Group plans to invest billions in its BECCS proposals, subject to the right support from the UK government, which could deliver up to 10,000 high-skilled jobs in the Humber at the peak of the project’s construction as well as safeguarding 7,000 direct and supply chain jobs. SSE Thermal’s Keadby Carbon Capture Power Station, meanwhile, was approved in December 2022, followed by the news that the company’s Keadby 2 Power Station in North Lincolnshire, the most efficient gas-fired power station in Europe, had entered commercial operations in 2023, and news in 2024 that SSE and Equinor were planning consultations for a new hydrogen-fired power station (Keadby Hydrogen Power Station) which could be operational from 2030. Adding to this influx of progress for the Humber’s greener energy offering and decarbonisation, in May Equinor, Centrica and SSE Thermal launched plans for a collaboration of multiple low carbon hydrogen projects on the north bank of the Humber. © stock.adobe.com/stevarnolwww.blmforum.net Business Link 27 HUMBER BANK Concurrently, Humber Freeport, launched in 2023 with a mission to drive hundreds of millions of pounds of investment and at least 7,000 new jobs in the region, has championed the opportunity to become a leading player in decarbonisation, positioning it as one of its key workstreams. Comprising of three defined tax sites – Hull East; Able Marine Energy Park and Immingham, on the south bank of the Humber; and Goole – Humber Freeport is attracting businesses to the region with incentives such as land tax relief, business rate relief, enhanced capital allowances and National Insurance contribution relief for employers. By the end of 2023, Humber Freeport tax sites had already attracted £1bn of investment which will create up to 600 jobs across the region. Significant investments included Finnish company Metsä Tissue’s plans to build the UK’s largest tissue paper mill in Goole, creating more than 400 jobs on site, Pensana investing more than £150m in a rare earth processing facility at Saltend Chemicals Park, and Meld Energy planning to invest £180m in a green hydrogen production facility. The Freeport also awarded £25m seed capital funding to businesses last year, for seven projects supporting major new facilities that will accelerate the decarbonisation of the Humber, including a new Humber Industrial Decarbonisation Centre in North East Lincolnshire, run by industry- led partnership CATCH, and Ideal Heating’s UK Technology Centre in Hull, assisting the manufacturer’s transition to low carbon heating solutions. These projects represent only a handful of those progressing across the region, with the Humber hoped to become the UK’s first low carbon industrial cluster. DIRECT GASKETS LIMITED For over three decades we have been market leaders in the manufacture of Gaskets. Here at Direct Gaskets we aim to be versatile in our company. We supply gaskets – bespoke and standard – to all types of businesses. Contact us today on 01482 219655 or visit our website www.direct‐gaskets.co.uk Units 26 ‐ 36 | Dansom Lane South Hull | HU8 7LA Email: info@direct‐gaskets.co.uk © stock.adobe.com/nblxer28 Business Link www.blmforum.net SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENTwww.blmforum.net Business Link 29 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT Yorkshire and Lincolnshire are in prime position to take advantage of the growing demand for supply chain and logistics management. A paradigm shift based on both convenience and experiences shared during lockdown has created a demand for home- delivery of products and services across the country, for everything from consumer goods to pizza and takeout, nothing is off-limits now. As a central location, Lincolnshire is ideal to host delivery hubs and distribution centres. Yet, the challenges that arise through a lack of rural investment mean that this sector is not as efficient, nor as large, as it has the potential to be. Here, we will 30 Á © stock.adobe.com/Digital DreamscapeNext >