Carbon abatement across supply chains

What can be achieved if you gather all the main players in a product’s supply chain in a single room to talk about emissions reduction? Ai Group and Sustainability Victoria decided to find out.

Ai Group partnered with Sustainability Victoria in a project called the ResourceSmart Business Industry Pilot. Two companies, SPC Ardmona and Bulla, were asked to nominate a major food product to undergo a full life cycle assessment (LCA) in order to identify the key contributions to its carbon footprint.

Feedback from participants
According to Vince Pinneri Managing Director, SPC Ardmona, “Aspects of our operations that we thought would account for a high or low proportion of our energy use actually ended up at the opposite end of the spectrum. Without conducting the study, I have no doubt we would have targeted projects in areas with less potential for both environmental and financial return.”

For Stephen Mitchell, Environment Manager from Bulla, the biggest surprise was the proportion of the product’s total carbon footprint that was directly attributable to Bulla’s own manufacturing processes – less than 10%. “We could go hell for leather on our own stuff and have a fairly negligible impact – we might drop it by 1%.” “For us, the big contributions were coming at the farm gate and in the supermarket freezer, so it emphasises that we’ve got to work with our partners across the whole supply chain.”

Project reports

Links 

• Coca Cola Amatil 2011 Corporate Responsibility Report

What is happening now?
Ai Group will continue to work with each supply chain to implement opportunities.

Further information

Leon Stackpole
Senior Adviser Environment and Energy, Ai Group
Phone (03) 9867 0222
leon.stackpole@aigroup.asn.au

Steve Mitchell, Environmental Manager
Bulla Dairy Foods
Phone (03) 52319300
stephen_mitchell@regalcream.com.au

David Sutton, Group Risk Manager
SPC Ardmona
Phone (03) 5833 2227
DSutton@spcardmona.com.au

Jo Brownlee
Project Manager Business Transformation, Sustainability Victoria
Phone (03) 8626 8768
jo.brownlee@sustainability.vic.gov.au