27 September 2024

Important decarbonisation milestone for Nordzucker: sugar production to be powered by biomethane out of beet residues in Denmark

For the path to carbon neutrality in production by 2050 at the latest, Nordzucker Group has set up a programme called GoGreen. Besides to the significant reduction in energy consumption, the use of renewable energies is a core element of the programme. Therefore, it is a major milestone that Nordzucker now has signed an agreement with Nature Energy on the supply of biomethane, ensuring that sugar can be produced by renewable energy. The biomethane will be produced out of beet residues of Nordzucker building a circular process.

The agreement concerns Nordzucker’s two Danish factories in Lolland-Falster in the southeastern part of Denmark operated by Nordzucker’s Danish subsidiary Nordic Sugar.

Nordzucker supplies residual beet pulp to Nature Energy’s biomethane plant on Lolland. The goal is that Nordzucker uses the biomethane for decarbonisation of sugar production and to reduce the CO₂ emission in the two Danish sugar factories stepwise up to 37,000 tonnes by 2030. The withdrawal from fuel oil and coal and the transition to natural gas and biomethane has been made possible by the new gas pipeline established by the Danish government in Lolland-Falster that was opened in September 2024.

CO₂ emissions are lowered by 40 percent by using biomethane

“We are delighted to be working with Nature Energy, an international leader in the field of biomethane. It is the first time we are using biomethane to such an extend out of our beet pulp for our sugar production in Denmark,” emphasizes Alexander Godow, Chief Operating Officer. “For us, it is a major milestone in our GoGreen programme to decarbonise our sugar production. We are using this cooperation with Nature Energy as a first step into renewable energy making our production more sustainable,” he explains. It is foreseen to reduce step by step until 2030 40 percent of the CO₂ emissions of the two Danish factories using biomethane.

Nordzucker is committed to CO₂-reduction targets in production

“Nordzucker is committed to sustainability and has set itself climate targets. By 2030 – in addition to the measures we have already implemented over the past decades – we are committed to cutting emissions from our factories by half. This is an important intermediate step towards CO₂-neutrality in production by 2050. In our GoGreen programme we are developing roadmaps for all Nordzucker sites to achieve this goal,” Alexander Godow explains.