For Earth Day 2022 we wanted to share our small steps to ‘Invest in our planet,’ and encourage and challenge other businesses who haven’t formalised their efforts, to do the same.
At Taranaki Bio Extracts a sustainable approach is at the very heart of what we do. We upcycle and transform the best of New Zealand’s beef bones to craft our premium ingredients. For us sustainability is all about meeting the needs of our customers, and their customers, without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same.
Our formalised journey started 12 months ago by instating a sustainability advocate on our team. Their role is to manage a clear mandate across the business to support sustainable practices.
Our advocate steered initial discussions across our team to;
- Review the positive and negative impacts our business has – Considering environmental, social, and economic factors, and looking at our whole value chain.
- Identify key areas for focus – these were energy and water use, emissions, waste and packaging.
This process highlighted areas of opportunity where we were doing well or could do better, and areas of risk that we needed to manage. As a team, we then identified UN Sustainability Development Goals that aligned with our business activities – THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development (un.org).
Each UN goal offers several specific and actionable targets. We used these as the framework for creating an over-arching sustainable strategy. By developing and delivering solutions towards achieving our chosen SDG’s we discovered new growth opportunities and were able to lower risk profiles.
#6 CLEAN WATER & SANITATION was one of our chosen goals. At Taranaki Bio Extracts we respect our water, and respecting it means saving it. The water we use in our extracts’ kitchen is natural and pure, originating at high altitudes on the slopes of Mt Taranaki – a mountain we look out on every day. Our focus is substantially increasing water-use efficiency across our planet and supporting our environment through the health of our freshwater.
A 10% reduction in potable water usage has been achieved in the last year as a result of integrating VSEP (Vibratory Shear Enhanced Processing) technology into our kitchen and plant operations, and further goals are being realised. This system recovers proteins from our wastewater and recycles clean water back into our process. In turn this minimises our wastewater and reduces our impact on the environment.
“In this information age brands need to earn their customers’/ clients’ trust and loyalty by being authentic and transparent. No one is perfect, but taking customers on your sustainability journey, and sharing your challenges and successes can be a big part of earning their trust,” says Tony Fergus, General Manager, Taranaki Bio Extracts.
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