Sustainability at the heart of Carbery's achievements
Carbery supplier Aidan McCarthy with his family on their farm in Schull, Co Cork.
For Carbery Group, the West Cork-based international ingredients and cheese company, sustainability is embedded deep within the company DNA.
This commitment to sustainability is not just as a means of ensuring the business is future-proofed and resilient, it also extends to protecting and enhancing the legacy of its farmer suppliers in West Cork.
“It is very much a part of the Carbery culture, and something that has been achieved in a very modest way over a considerable period of time,” explains Enda Buckley, Director of Sustainability at Carbery Group.
“It is a natural process for the company, and goes back to our co-operative ethos of giving back and making sure everyone has a share.”
Sustainability means being able to stand over the supply chain and business decisions, allied to the beneficial impact upon the environment and surrounding communities.
“Sustainability underpins the relationship with our suppliers and runs through three spheres - economic, environmental and social. This is not just a public relations stance for Carbery Group, sustainability is deeply embedded and ensures everybody has a say and an input.”
The phrase often heard in this space - ‘triple bottom line’ - best encapsulates the ethos: “If those three elements ( environmental, economic and social outcomes) don’t operate in a symbiotic fashion, it will be similar to the three-legged stool - if one is uneven, all will fall.”
Carbery’s commitment to integrating sustainable practices into its core business strategy is instilled as the optimum way to drive the process throughout the group.
Sustainability is integral to doing the right thing as part of the company’s vision for a better future where the customers, farmers and the communities it interacts with thrive and prosper.
“Sustainability is central to our culture,” says Enda Buckley. “We are always looking for ways to enhance and improve it, and certainly that traditional co-operative ethos helps greatly in that regard.”
In terms of the evolution of the Carbery Group’s corporate responsibility and sustainability focus, 2019 was a year of significant progress.
Against a backdrop of a 20% increase in production across its eight global manufacturing sites, the Group was able to achieve a reduction in carbon emissions of 11.7%. Since 2017, carbon emissions intensity per tonne of production has reduced by 28.5% at Ballineen.
A Group turnover increase of 3% was achieved through growth across all business segments, with milk volumes in 2019 reaching 567 million litres, a growth of 42% between 2015 and 2019, all processed in Ballineen.
With the aim of being carbon neutral by 2035 across all Carbery locations, Carbery Group CEO Jason Hawkins acknowledged that while the positive business results were a major achievement, what he and his team are most proud of is how these results have been achieved.
“At Carbery, we have been focusing on how the business performs, but also on how we do business. Due to our cooperative model, and our close relationship with our farmer suppliers in West Cork, we have always been connected to the community and the product that we produce," said Jason Hawkins.
"Throughout 2019 we have been working on how we can safeguard the future of our business, while improving on that connection and commitment, both in Ireland and in our operations across the world.”
Keenly aware of the challenges posed by Covid-19, Carbery is closely monitoring developments in dairy markets across the world.
“Our primary concerns, as we navigate this crisis, are to safeguard the health of our employees and our farmer suppliers, as we endeavour to maintain production,” Mr Hawkins said.
“While we are committed to growing the company, underpinning our growth ambitions is a focus on growing in a sustainable way, which will guarantee a stable and successful future for our business, our shareholder suppliers, our people, the community and the environment.”
- Since 2018, electricity purchased has been 100% from renewable sources through a green tariff.
- The Every Drop Counts water programme has saved 1.4m litres of water per day in Ballineen.
- The Carbery Greener Dairy Farms programme provides support to help farmers reduce energy use and carbon emissions. The 25 farms participating have reduced emissions by 15%.
- In summer 2019, a small-scale grass bio-refinery was tested on five Carbery farms in West Cork - the first of its kind to be trialled in Ireland and one of the first in Europe.
- An Ethical Procurement policy which outlines expectations on environmental, social and human rights aspects related to procurement is being built into the contracts process.
- 95% of the paper and cardboard bought in Ballineen is certified sustainable.
- From 2020, the Group will begin light-weighting plastic packaging and sourcing alternatives with a view to reducing the amount of plastic used by as much as 10 tonnes a year.
- The Group aim to be carbon neutral by 2035 across all sites through decarbonising existing energy sources.
Science Foundation Ireland’s Future Innovator Prize of €5 million supports interdisciplinary teams to develop disruptive solutions that can help accelerate progress towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland by 2050.
The dairy industry, a key component of the social and economic fabric of Ireland and Europe, faces the challenge of needing to reduce GHG emissions and ultimately to become carbon neutral.
Enter Farm Zero C - the Carbon-Neutral Resilient dairy farm.
A world first for agriculture, Carbery and its collaborators have undertaken an interdisciplinary programme of work targeting soil and grassland; animal diet and breeding; biodiversity; life cycle analysis and renewable energy as a direct response to the challenge area. This presents a holistic view of the farm to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the health and resilience of the farm.
There are multiple partners in the Farm Zero C project, with a leadership team of Professor Kevin O'Connor, UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science; Dr Fionnuala Murphy, UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering; and Enda Buckley, Director of Sustainability, Carbery.
“Agriculture is under environmental pressures with a negative image, but I believe it can be a leader in sustainability,” said Professor O’Connor.
“It will take a lot of effort but I see lots of opportunities for farmers to turn the tide so that farms are climate neutral, enhancing biodiversity and stewards of sustainability. That is what Farm Zero C is attempting to achieve: a new sustainable business model for farming. We are using a dairy farm as an exemplar but we believe it can be translatable to other sectors of agriculture.”
For Carbery, developing pioneering projects like this is part of working to safeguard their farmer suppliers’ future.
Because Carbery is a dairy processor owned by its milk suppliers, its commitment to supporting the traditions of quality in Irish dairy farming is at the heart of its operations.
In 2012, the company launched the Greener Dairy Farms initiative - working with 25 select farms to better understand resource optimisation and to enable the sharing of best practice across its entire farming community.
The initiative is a dairy efficiency programme designed to measure, monitor and optimise resource allocation and best practice on farms. Focusing on carbon emissions, water and soil nutrient management, valuable learnings are disseminated through farm walks, workshops with vets and milk quality advisors and discussion groups.
Sustainability research is undertaken in collaboration with Teagasc, the national agricultural authority supporting science-based innovation in the agri-food sector.
Aidan McCarthy from Schull is one of those farmers selected for the Greener Dairy Farms initiative.
“As a supplier, we have been connected to Drinagh and Carbery forever, producing milk for them over generations,” Aidan explains of the long-standing relationship.
In 2012, Aidan was chosen to partake in the Greener Dairy Farms initiative.
“Back then it was a new thing, but one that we were all very willing to be part of because Carbery has proven itself such a great company over the years. We jumped at the opportunity.”
What followed was an exhaustive and in-depth focus on those selected farms and a metered examination of their entire operations across energy and water usage, fertiliser and oil, hours worked.
Eight years on, Aidan agrees that “we have so much to be proud of in our Irish farms, and moreso in the product we are producing.” Ireland is producing the lowest milk carbon footprint in the EU, bar none.
“For as little as six litres of water, we are producing one litre of milk - compared to other countries where 40 litres of water is needed to produce that same litre of milk.”
Ireland’s unique climate provides dairy farmers with an advantageous environment for sustainable farming. Cows can graze naturally outdoors for up to 10 months of the year and since Ireland has the longest grass growing season in the world, the herd still enjoy a grass-fed diet for the remainder of the year, even when housed during winter.
“Participating in smaller projects like the Carbery Trees (between 2016 and 2018, Carbery in partnership with SWS Forestry provided 45,000 native trees to West Cork dairy farmers and Carbery staff to plant throughout West Cork), or sowing hedgerows along fences, are also of huge benefit for biodiversity on our farms.”
Farmers shouldn’t be afraid to get involved in such environmental schemes, Aidan believes, getting paid to do the right thing environmentally on a farm is not a bad thing.
“We are not trying to change the world, but maybe if we could all do something to improve our own little patch, collectively we could all make a difference for the next generation.” For more information on Carbery Group's commitments to sustainability, visit the group's website: HERE.
- Carbery becomes one of the world’s first processors to install ultra-filtration WPC technology
- Carbery is first food company in Ireland to gain the ISO quality standard (IS9002)
- Carbery wins the 2016 Green Food and Beverage Award
- Carbery wins Agribusiness of the Year and excellence in sustainability at the Agribusiness Awards
- Carbery wins Sustainable Energy Achievement Award at Green Awards 2018
- Winner of The Sustainable Water Achievement Award at the Green Awards 2019
- Carbery wins Most Successful Market Entry into Asia Award at Asia Matters
- Synergy US Headquarters receives LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)
- : Winner of The Sustainability Team of the Year at the Green Awards 2020
