Responsible Business Report 2024 - Flipbook - Page 14
RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS REPORT CONTINUED
We respect the environment continued
Water and waste
As a multi-beverage business, water is an
important ingredient, as well as a necessary
resource we rely upon across our operations.
There is increasing awareness of the challenges
faced in managing water resources and we are
extremely aware of the part we have to play in
protecting this precious commodity.
We are pleased to report further improvements
in our water usage efficiency. Our ratio of total
water used relative to total litres of product
produced has improved by 10.7% against our
2020 baseline, supported by a number of
initiatives across our manufacturing sites. This
reflects the early achievement of our 2025 water
efficiency target. More information can be found
in our non-financial KPI section on page 4.
We have also invested in additional water
metering at our Milton Keynes site during the
year. This technology is already providing useful
data across our production lines, supporting
the identification of further areas where water
consumption can be reduced in the year ahead.
As part of our sustainable sourcing strategy we
also know that the most significant water use in
our value chain is in agriculture. The crops that
we rely upon for many of our products, such as
mangos, are grown in hot, potentially waterstressed areas, and we are working in
partnership with our global suppliers to
encourage sustainable practices.
Once again we are pleased to have achieved
our long-term target related to waste with
100% of our non-hazardous waste diverted
from landfill. Our objective is to maintain this
performance on a permanent basis.
We are also targeting waste reduction across our
own operational sites. Our Brilliance in the Making
continuous improvement programme, operated
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W A S T E
H I G H L I G H T
W AT E R
Extending the life of packaging
Many of our raw materials and ingredients are
delivered to us in cardboard packaging – we have
partnered with a number of businesses to reuse rather
than recycle these items, putting them to useful
purposes, extending the life of the packaging and
saving unnecessary recycling and reprocessing.
across our own factories, identifies and delivers
initiatives that generate efficiency, waste and
water improvements. As a result of process
improvements across the year, and a specific focus
on material reduction, we have removed over
15 tonnes of operational waste on an annual basis.
We have also successfully diverted 495 tonnes of
waste from disposal, through partnerships and
arrangements with organisations that can reuse
our waste and put it to meaningful use.
Sustainable sourcing
As climate change and a rising population put
pressure on our limited natural resources, it is
important for all our raw materials to be sourced
sustainably and used effectively.
As one of our No Time To Waste workstreams,
sustainable sourcing is key to ensuring our
high-quality ingredients and materials are
sourced and manufactured in a fair, ethical
and environmentally responsible way.
Our Supplier Code of Conduct sets out the
key supplier principles we work to and the
minimum standards we require our suppliers
to meet, which form part of their contractual
commitments to us. This Code is fundamental to
A.G. BARR p.l.c. Responsible Business Report 2024
H I G H L I G H T
Over 1
million
litres of water saved as a result of
improved rinsing efficiencies on
IRN-BRU production runs at our
Cumbernauld factory
dedicated to driving improvements in ethical
and responsible business practices. We also use
the Sedex Supplier Approval Questionnaire as
an important secondary validation step which
allows independent benchmarking of suppliers
on a consistent measurable basis.
ensuring we work with suppliers who uphold the
highest standards with respect to human rights,
conditions of employment and who actively
reduce their environmental footprint. We ensure
our critical suppliers have embedded sustainable
and ethical practices in their organisations, and
that they are committed to maintaining these
principles within their own supply chains.
Our key suppliers must acknowledge their
compliance on an annual basis through our
stringent supplier approval process, which uses
questionnaires and audits to confirm adherence
to our standards across a broad range of
requirements. For many years we have used the
Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex) platform,
a not-for-profit global membership organisation
The output from these questionnaires also allows us
to collaborate and engage with our suppliers to set
objectives and action plans to deliver sustainable
and continuous improvements. This includes active
and ongoing dialogue with our key suppliers related
to their carbon reduction plans – their actions
support the delivery of our Scope 3 science-based
targets, and ultimately our net-zero ambition.
Materiality and stakeholder engagement
We regularly engage with internal and external
stakeholders to ensure that our responsibility
agenda is addressing the material issues.
Governance
Our responsibility agenda is integrated into
our strategic, financial and business planning,
as well as our risk management processes, with
ultimate accountability sitting with the Board.