Warburtons has unveiled its first corporate responsibility framework, featuring a raft of ambitious environmental targets and changes to its supply chain, including a 20% cut in CO2 emissions by 2020.
The policy, entitled Building Success Responsibly, sets out the bakery's agenda to manage its supply chain ethically and sustainably, reduce its impact on the environment and support charitable projects in communities local to the 14 Warburtons bakeries around the UK.
Targets include plans to reduce total water usage 20% by 2020 through fitting 120 water meters across all its bakeries. Warburtons expects to achieve zero bread and packaging waste from bakeries to landfill by 2015 and reduce fuel use by 10% by 2014. It will also be donating 1% of pre-tax profits per year to charitable causes.
The Bolton business claims it reduced the carbon intensity of each loaf by 30g between 2007 and 2008 and has saved 20,000 food miles by moving a proportion of its wheat from lorries to ships that deliver to the mills around the coastline of the UK.
It has just rolled out a prototype Econic lorry that runs on compressed and natural gas and, late last year, introduced double-decker trucks to increase the capacity and save 70,000 miles a year.
As the UK's second-biggest grocery brand [Nielsen], Warburtons felt it was necessary to be more transparent on its corporate responsibility, said Sarah Miskell, corporate responsibility director.
"The major difference to our framework compared with the CR programmes of other companies is the short time frame we have set ourselves to achieve the targets," said Miskell. "We calculated our footprint for the first time in 2007 and have set targets from a base of 2008. Most other companies set their base from 1990, making it easier to achieve."
Warburtons would also be looking to source ingredients, such as seeds, from suppliers located closer to the bakeries to reduce food miles, she added.
Read more
One in four jobs at Warburtons’ Bolton arm could go (29 January 2010)
Warburtons moves into unsliced with premium Tiger loaf (9 January 2010)
The policy, entitled Building Success Responsibly, sets out the bakery's agenda to manage its supply chain ethically and sustainably, reduce its impact on the environment and support charitable projects in communities local to the 14 Warburtons bakeries around the UK.
Targets include plans to reduce total water usage 20% by 2020 through fitting 120 water meters across all its bakeries. Warburtons expects to achieve zero bread and packaging waste from bakeries to landfill by 2015 and reduce fuel use by 10% by 2014. It will also be donating 1% of pre-tax profits per year to charitable causes.
The Bolton business claims it reduced the carbon intensity of each loaf by 30g between 2007 and 2008 and has saved 20,000 food miles by moving a proportion of its wheat from lorries to ships that deliver to the mills around the coastline of the UK.
It has just rolled out a prototype Econic lorry that runs on compressed and natural gas and, late last year, introduced double-decker trucks to increase the capacity and save 70,000 miles a year.
As the UK's second-biggest grocery brand [Nielsen], Warburtons felt it was necessary to be more transparent on its corporate responsibility, said Sarah Miskell, corporate responsibility director.
"The major difference to our framework compared with the CR programmes of other companies is the short time frame we have set ourselves to achieve the targets," said Miskell. "We calculated our footprint for the first time in 2007 and have set targets from a base of 2008. Most other companies set their base from 1990, making it easier to achieve."
Warburtons would also be looking to source ingredients, such as seeds, from suppliers located closer to the bakeries to reduce food miles, she added.
Read more
One in four jobs at Warburtons’ Bolton arm could go (29 January 2010)
Warburtons moves into unsliced with premium Tiger loaf (9 January 2010)
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