Environmental Responsibility

Our responsibility for the environment has a high priority. We have defined four key areas in which we want to achieve continuous improvement:

  • Environmental management systems
  • Energy efficiency
  • Reduce CO2 emissions
  • Effective resource management

Examples of what we have achieved so far

Environmental management systems

In our factories we implement the certified energy management system ISO 50001. This helps us to plan, implement and verify measures with the target to raise the energy efficiency in our plants. Moreover, our factories use an energy management software for detailed tracking and identification of efficiency improvement potentials.

Renewable energy

We are committed to expanding the use of renewable energy at our plants, and to developing projects for in-house renewable energy production. Several plants installed photovoltaic modules on the roof to generate electricity, as well as biogas plants for production of renewable energy in the form of biogas from organic waste compounds.

Reducing climate impact

We identified the Sustainable Development Goal No. 13 "Climate Action" as one of the focus areas for our business. Therefore, we set our target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30% in 2023. Between 2010 and 2018, we already achieved a reduction of 17% in GHG emissions. This was driven by our ongoing measures to improve energy efficiency, including modernising technology and sharing best practices amongst our production sites. 

Resource management

Our goal is to use our resources very carefully along the whole value creation process. We are constantly trying to find opportunities for saving rescources in energy and water consumption and the production of packaging materials. We are convinced that our biggest lever for saving all resources is the avoidance of waste production in any form. Therefore, waste reduction programmes are in place and progress is constantly reviewed. This pays off both from an economic and environmental perspective.

Waste

We distinguish between edible and non-edible waste. Following our ambitions, we set up specific targets to reduce edible waste in each product category. In the product categories "chips" and "baked", we achieved a reduction of 7% (chips) and 16% (baked) between 2014 and 2018.

Packaging

Concerning non-edible waste, we put high focus on environment-friendly design and reduction of our packaging materials. 

The Intersnack Group supports the EU circular economy approach and is committed to continuously working on the prevention, reduction and recyclability of our packaging materials:

  • We aim to reduce 10% of our packaging material by 2022 (on a 2014 baseline) by continuously exploring further optimization of and more efficient material use in our existing packaging portfolio.
  • By 2025 we strive for 100% of our plastic consumer packaging to be recyclable.

In order to achieve our ambition, we depend on and will contribute where possible to

  • the development and availability of recyclable foils by the packaging industry
  • a further development & improvement of waste collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure across Europe
  • consistent (implementation of) legislation and government incentives across Europe 
  • correct disposal of packaging by consumers.

We actively engage in stakeholder alliances, public-private partnerships and cross-industry initiatives to support the development of innovative solutions.

During all this effort, we continue to assure and safeguard the quality of our products and the functionality of our packaging material to prevent unnecessary food waste.  

Water

With respect to the resource water, we focus on our chips plants. Our aim is to reduce the usage of water by 7,5% (2020 vs. 2014). Between 2010 and 2014 we have already reduced our water usage by 13%.

Our plans for the future

  • Reduction of energy consumption by 10% (2020 vs. 2014)
  • Reduction of water usage by 7,5% (2020 vs. 2014)
  • Reduction of edible waste by 11% (2020 vs. 2014)
  • Reduction of non-edible waste by 8% (2020 vs. 2014)
  • Optimization of packaging material
  • Review and continuation of targets beyond 2020