Important milestones in our carbon reduction journey
At each of the Coca-Cola Europacific Partners’ (CCEP) manufacturing sites across GB, our teams are committed to making improvements to daily operations that will help accelerate our carbon reduction journey. There are big and small changes taking place every day at all our sites that are helping us reduce our emissions.
As 2023 gets underway, I wanted to share the progress we’re making at our manufacturing site in Morpeth, in Northumberland. It is the first GB site to become certified as carbon neutral, which means there is no net release of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere as a result of our operations at the site.
This is an important milestone that has only been achieved thanks to the efforts of the Morpeth team. Here are just some of the changes that have helped to contribute to us reaching this landmark:
- A total investment of £3.5 million into the site since 2017 made to improve overall operating efficiency and reduce emissions
- The transition of all warehouse lighting to lower power LED
- The transition of the site’s forklift trucks from Liquefied Petroleum Gas to Lithium-ion electric
- The site’s weekly shutdowns of all service equipment including machines, pumps and motors ensuring no energy is wasted during non-production periods
Morpeth, like all our other GB sites, has also been powered by 100% renewable electricity for over 10 years. This has resulted in a 47% reduction in our carbon footprint since 2010.
Journey towards carbon neutral
Our manufacturing site in Morpeth, while the first to reach the milestone in GB, is one of six CCEP company-wide sites to be certified as carbon neutral. Carbon neutral certifications at our sites are just one of the ways we are working towards our ambition to reach Net Zero by 2040 and reduce our GHG emissions across our value chain by 30% by 2030 (vs. 2019). Sites are selected to apply for certification based on their previous carbon reductions and, once certified, will continue to work to reduce emissions year-on-year in line with PAS 2060 requirements.
GB’s wider manufacturing initiatives
Milestones such as the one achieved by Morpeth are a testament to the sustainability initiatives being implemented across our five GB production sites that are improving our efficiency and helping us move towards our Net Zero targets.
Our Sidcup site has seen £118 million in investment since 2017, including a state-of-the-art high-speed canning line capable of producing 2,000 cans per minute. This also followed the installation of the site’s high-tech Automated Storage Retrieval System (ASRS) warehouse which increased efficiencies across the supply chain and increased storage capacity, helping to save 10,817 road miles by HGV trucks and 3,687 tonnes of CO2 per year.
We’re also taking steps to reduce plastic waste and promote recycling in order to increase the availability of high-quality recycled plastic that we can use in our bottles in future. Last year, we became the first major soft drinks producer to introduce attached caps on our plastic bottles, making it easier to recycle the entire bottle and ensure no cap is left behind. Production began in May at our site in East Kilbride, Scotland, and has begun to roll out across England, with the intention to have attached caps across our entire range of plastic bottles by the end of 2024.
Supply chain collaboration
Our supply chain collaborations have also been vital in helping us accelerate our path to Net Zero. I’m particularly grateful to our suppliers and third-party logistics providers for working with us as we aim to reduce our emissions - we’ve been able to launch notable initiatives in the past year as a result.
We’re working alongside 150 strategic suppliers as part of our Supplier Carbon Initiative to help drive down scope 3 emissions in our supply chain by 30% by 2023. Our longest serving logistics supplier, MJD, has already transitioned from Diesel to Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) Biofuel across its entire haulage fleet in 2022. This has cut carbon emissions by 17,000 metric tonnes of CO2e per year.
We’ve also been working with suppliers to support the switch of transporting products from road to rail from our manufacturing site and third-party warehouse locations across London and Yorkshire. Once running at its full capacity, this switch will see around 2.5 million cans and bottles delivered by rail per day, reducing carbon emissions by nearly 50% compared to previous road operations.
As the largest soft drinks supplier in Great Britain, we acknowledge the role we have in leading the charge on implementing impactful sustainable changes. The efforts are clear, with countless changes rolled out in the past few years alone, backed by a total of £282 million in investments into our sites since 2017. But our journey is far from over. Our investment programme will continue to grow into 2023 and beyond, and we’ll keep moving forward to help achieve our wider Net Zero and carbon reduction goals.
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