Glanbia Ingredients Ireland Wins Bord Bia Sustainability Award 2015
Glanbia Ingredients Ireland (GII), Ireland’s leading dairy company, has won the Bord Bia Sustainability Award 2015, the category which received the most entries during this year’s application process. The biennial Bord Bia Food & Drink Awards are designed to acknowledge and reward excellence within the Irish Food and Drink industry.
GII’s winning submission focused on the company’s sustainability achievements on farm, in plant and – uniquely to GII – its efforts to protect farm incomes through its fixed milk price volatility programme, delivering on its goal of economic sustainability for milk suppliers.
Sean Molloy, Director of Strategy and Supplier Relations at GII, comments: “This award is a very positive endorsement of the significant work within our business in the area of sustainability and, in particular, of the combined efforts of our cross-functional teams that ensure sustainability remains a priority for GII.”
The removal of the dairy quota system in 2015 has opened up opportunities for the expansion of dairying in Ireland. In order to seize this opportunity and to sustain its farmers’ businesses into the future, it is GII’s ambition to lead the international field in Sustainable Dairying.
Sustainability is a key focus across GII’s five manufacturing plants. On farm sustainability targets are delivered by the Glanbia Milk Advisory Team which works closely with GII farmers in the areas of quality, environmental and financial best practice as defined in the company’s Open Source® Sustainability and Quality Assurance code.
As a founding member of Origin Green, GII is committed to auditing its entire milk supply base to establish a baseline under a number of sustainability indicators by Q1 2016 as well as driving environmental excellence, reducing energy use, greenhouse gases and water abstraction per tonne of milk processed at manufacturing plant level. GII’s ambition is to reduce carbon emissions by 10% by 2020, zero waste to landfill by 2015 and a 25% reduction in water abstraction by 2020.
“At GII, we recognise that our customers value sustainability as much as we do. It has come to denote transparency, traceability, responsibility and quality – all of which are core to the range of products we produce and how we produce them,” says Audrey O’Shea, GII Sustainability Manager.
