World Water Day 2023 – Playing our Part in contributing to a better world
Every year since 1993, World Water Day (22nd March) raises awareness and inspires action to tackle the global water crisis of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. At Glanbia we recognise and value water as a precious natural resource and are fully committed to playing our part by reducing freshwater usage and driving water conservation at all our sites.
Glanbia reduced freshwater consumption by 17% between 2015 and 2020. In 2022 we revised our ambition and set a new target for a reduction in freshwater use of 10% by 2025, over a 2021 baseline. This will equate to saving over 500 million litres of water each year.
The decision to accelerate water conservation came after extensive strategic work in 2022, including leveraging the insights from water use data sets and analysis, and prioritising sites previously identified as high risk through the World Resources Institute ("WRI") Aqueduct risk assessment.
Our dairy processing plants have a unique opportunity for water reuse. Milk is almost 90% water. In our dairy plants water is generated when milk constituents are separated and concentrated or fractionated. This water is referred to as polished water. Polished water optimisation is our priority focus, by both ensuring water use efficiency and capitalising on the inherent efficiency of dairy operations that return more water than they take in.
Resource efficiency and circularity are core values in our operations. In Idaho, our dairy facilities reuse polished water and recycle it in our processes before cleaning it at our onsite wastewater treatment plant and using it to irrigate the crops we grow in adjacent fields. The crops go back to local milk suppliers as feed, fuelling the regenerative process.
In our operations, Glanbia actively recovers and recycles water to reduce the impact on the environment, continuously focusing on water quality and sustainable wastewater discharge. The current ratio of freshwater and polished water used in our dairy operations allowed us to save 5,313 million litres of freshwater from being withdrawn for processing in 2022.
In 2023 and beyond, we will continue to maximise polished water recovery and recycling to further reduce our freshwater withdrawals in line with our new ambitious target. Glanbia is proud to say we return more treated water to the environment than it draws as freshwater.
Read about our team in Twin Falls, Idaho, receiving a 2022 pollution prevention award here.