Nordzucker Post 02/2022 - 2 June 2022
GoGreen for the climate
For sugar production, we need heat to evaporate the high water content in the beet – around 75 per cent – and to crystallize the sugar. We generate most of the heat from fossil fuels and also use it to generate electricity. We want our production to be CO2-neutral by 2050 at the latest. Considerable investments are necessary to achieve this.
By 2030, we want to reduce our CO2 emissions by 50 per cent compared to 2018. To accompany the path to CO2 neutrality, Nordzucker joined the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in 2021. Through science-based and transparent targets, which are verified by independent climate scientists, we ensure that the reduction of our emissions matches the level of climate protection measures required. Nordzucker thus aims to measurably support the achievement of the climate targets from the Paris Agreement. Our current target is in line with the Paris Agreement goal of not exceeding 1.5 degrees of global warming. We expect our targets to be confirmed by the SBTi before the end of 2022.
The science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets are a component of Nordzucker’s Sustainability Strategy 2030, which, in addition to climate targets, covers the entire value chain: procurement including beet cultivation, production, products and packaging, and social issues.
Renewable energies are not available in unlimited quantities. It is therefore all the more important to always see their use in conjunction with energy saving. We are actively using new technologies to achieve this. Different possibilities in the environment of the individual sugar factories show that there cannot be only one way towards CO2 neutrality. Our technologies must be adapted to this in each case.
In our view, a practicable and future-oriented solution would be if we could produce biogas or biomethane from about half of the sugar beet pulp left over from sugar production in the future and use this for our own energy supply. This is a fascinating idea that would require considerable investment but could be implemented in a few years if the right political conditions were in place.
