September 7, 2020

CP Foods supports more use of renewable energy during operations

Chareon Pokphand Foods PCL (CP Foods) has promoted the use of renewable energy -- specifically solar cell, biogas and biomass -- at its manufacturing lines to align with its plan to increase energy efficiency through a 25% reduction of carbon emissions by 2025, the company said.

Wuthichai Sithipreedanant, CP Foods' senior vice president for corporate social responsibility and sustainable development, said the company has operated businesses inclined toward the circular economy to minimise negative impacts on the environment, the world and economy while maximising its positive impacts throughout the supply chain.

For example, fragments of meat from production lines can be recycled to create a new value-added product. CP Foods is also focusing on employing biomass, biogas and solar cell -- eco-friendly alternatives that can cut the use of electricity and fuel oil. 

The company targets to reduce energy consumption per production unit by 15% in 2025 compared to the base year of 2015. CP Foods' energy projects have included the employment of solar rooftops which will be set up on 24 manufacturing plants and office buildings. The installation is expected to be completed by this year. Another project involves enabling solar power at 16 CP Foods pig farms, with 10 solar plants expected to be installed by this year.

In 2019, CP Foods in Thailand achieved using renewable energy in 26% of its total energy consumption. Of the total, biomass energy obtained from using waste materials (scrap wood, sawdust and corn cob) accounted for 1.857 million gigajoules. Biogas energy accounted for 1.017 million gigajoules while rooftop solar power accounted for 439 gigajoules. These projects helped reduce CP Foods' carbon emission by 425,000 tonnes per year.

"CP Foods has played an active role on well-functional energy management by applying more supporting technologies in the processing lines. Particularly, [CP Foods' installation of] rooftop (solar power) and solar farms will be gradually finished.  So far, 100% of the company's pig farms have (used) biogas energy, following the goal to minimise energy consumption per unit to tackle climate change," said Sithipreedanant.

- CP Foods