More manufacturers adopt the green mantle

By Maggie Urry
Published: August 25 2008 03:00

Wiseman is by no means alone in looking at ways to save money while becoming more "green" in its business. A number of other companies are investing in technology intended in one way or another to reduce fossil fuel usage.
This month Diageo, the international drinks group, announced a plan to invest £65m in a "bioenergy facility" at its distillery in Cameronbridge, in Fife. Diageo has yet to gain planning approval but the intention is that the facility will combine an anaerobic digester and a biomass boiler. The digester will capture the methane gas - a powerful greenhouse gas - produced by decomposing organic matter such as wheat, barley and yeast from the distillery. Then the biomass boiler will use the dried solids from the digester as a fuel.
Diageo calculates it will cut the carbon dioxide emitted from the distillery by 56,000 tonnes a year, the equivalent of taking 44,000 cars off the roads.
Tate & Lyle, the sweeteners group, is installing a £20m biomass boiler at its Thames cane sugar refinery in east London that is due to be completed by March next year. The boiler will generate 70 per cent of the refinery's energy needs, cutting its CO2 emissions by the same proportion. The carbon footprint of the sugar produced will be reduced by an estimated 25 per cent.
Initially the boiler will use wheat-husk as its feedstock, but it was designed to be capable of using other by-products from crops. The group is also installing a similar boiler at a new corn wet milling plant it is building in Iowa. The Thames refinery already sells energy to the National Grid and once the boiler is working it will contribute to the drive to lower the nation's carbon footprint.
British Sugar, the UK sugar beet refiner, is also tackling environmental concerns. At its Wissington site in Norfolk it makes bioethanol from sugar beet to replace petrol used in cars.
The factory uses waste from the beet in aerobic and anaerobic digesters, which in turn produce biogas used as fuel for a combined heat and power plant. Hot water needed for the refining process is then used to heat 11 hectares of glasshouses where British Sugar grows tomatoes. The cooled water then irrigates the plants.
Its nursery is the largest grower of classic salad tomatoes in the UK producing 70m a year between April and November.
Since tomatoes use CO2 in photosynthesis, the glasshouses also take the CO2 from the power plant, saving emissions into the atmosphere.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008