Our business is built on the basis of social, environmental and economic sustainability. At Glanbia our focus on minimizing waste and maximizing the circular economy includes how we address waste at our manufacturing sites and in our customer facing brands.
For many, recycling is the obvious action to tackle the problems facing our environment. For Glanbia the focus, since launching a group-wide sustainability strategy in 2015, has primarily been on executing a phased sustainability programme focused on waste, water, and energy consumption.
The first focus within our operations has been on examining and setting realistic ambitions for our waste streams. In 2016 Glanbia Performance Nutrition set a goal of zero waste to landfill in all manufacturing and warehouses by 2019. The waste management programme focused on establishing baseline data, centralizing data tracking, identifying source reduction opportunities and engaging employees through site “Green Teams”. As a result GPN achieved its zero landfill goal in 2018 ahead of target across all sites and eliminating 4,500 tonnes from landfill. Glanbia Nutritionals is pursuing a similar ambition for our specialty operations sites with our longer term goal of zero waste to landfill for all manufacturing sites.