JUNE 2019 COVER STORY
17
GETTING THE
GREEN LIGHT
Manufacturers are coming under increasing
pressure to improve their sustainability, with the
topic now finding itself front and centre in factory
boardrooms across the UK
BY CHRIS BECK
Making sustainability
second nature
One manufacturer that
is taking the lead is food
production giant, Cranswick,
which operates 15 plants across
the UK. Andy Mayer is the site
director of the company’s
Gourmet Pastry factory
in Hull, which
produces pies,
sausages rolls
and quiches
for retailers
including Marks
& Spencer. The
food industry is
one of the biggest
culprits for waste: UN
statistics from 2017 show
that, globally, around a third
of all food that is produced is
discarded, of which 1.3 billion
tonnes is edible. However,
only a fifth of that comes from
people’s plates, fridges and
cupboards. A further third is
discarded on farms, meaning
around half of all wasted food
comes from manufacturing,
distribution and retail.
For companies like
Cranswick, therefore,
redressing the balance has
become imperative, as Mayer
explains: “The board has set
a very ambitious target to
become the world’s most
sustainable meat business.
Sustainability has become
such a huge part of people’s
www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk
Shortly after ten past three in the
afternoon of Friday 31 May, the UK hit
a significant milestone. It marked a
fortnight without any coal-generated
power being used to generate electricity.
Earlier in the month, the UK had gone
a week without coal – the first time this had
happened since 1882, when the world’s first
centralised public coal-fired generator
came online in Holborn in London.
The news is the latest in
the ever-growing profile that
environmental issues have
received of late. In late April,
Central London was brought to a
standstill by Extinction Rebellion,
a protest movement against climate
change and biodiversity loss. Looking
further back, David Attenborough’s 2017 series
Blue Planet II has been credited with raising
awareness of the issue the planet is facing with
regards to plastic waste.
For manufacturers, sustainability has found
itself firmly on the agenda at a boardroom level
for some time. Rising energy costs, tighter
regulations (see box, p19) and societal pressures
have combined to ensure manufacturers have
never been under more scrutiny around what goes
into and out of the gates of the plant. This has
led to manufacturers finding increasingly wideranging
initiatives to become more sustainable.
Household names have got in on the act, from
Bentley Motors installing 10,000 new solar panels
at its factory in Crewe (see p7), to drinks giant
Diageo replacing plastic ring carriers and shrink
wrap from cans of Guinness, replacing it with
100% recyclable and biodegradable cardboard
packaging (inset) – a move that the company
claims will remove the equivalent of 40 million
50cl plastic bottles from the world, enough to
reach from London to Beijing.
/www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk