The Environment
Overview
The Group’s decisions and activities have an impact on the environment. The impacts arise from the Group’s use of resources, location of the Group’s activities – whether in rural or urban areas, the generation of pollution and waste, and the impact of the Group’s activities on the broader environment.
To reduce its environmental impacts, the Group adopted an integrated approach that takes into consideration the direct and indirect economic, social, health and environmental implications of its decisions and activities.
Principles
Environmental stewardship is a key responsibility of our management, which carries both financial and physical risks. The Group ensures that its operations comply with environmental laws, voluntary and international best practices and standards to avoid, minimise and mitigate negative impacts on the environment and through accurate reporting improve our performance as well as the performance of others within our sphere of influence. The Group calculates its carbon footprint in order to understand its current impact on climate change, allowing it to establish and to optimise the Group’s use of resources while minimising its environmental impacts and reducing long term risks.
Scope of Data
Sustainability reporting is a cyclical process where we aim to expand the scope that’s being reported on gradually over time. It is a continuous process of improving efficiency through accurate data collection and over the course of the reporting year, the Group has incorporated more precise data and information collection from an environmental perspective through its sustainability reporting.
Waste Management
The Group is committed to reduce the amount of waste deposited at landfills and to increase the Group’s commitment to the 4 R’s (Reduce, Re-use, Recycle and Recover), the zerowaste philosophy and Best Environmental Option (BEO) approach to managing waste with the safe and responsible disposal of residual waste.
During the year, the Group produced a total of 43 177 tonnes of waste, of which 4.23% was disposed at landfills. 78.86% of the Group’s waste was suitable for use on farms with the majority being chicken manure which was used as organic fertilizer. 3.4% was plastics and 3.55% paper or cardboard waste that was recycled. During the reporting year 1 801 tonnes of waste was incinerated in the National Foods’ cyclonic boiler compared to 482 tonnes in F2022; a significant increase cutting National Foods’ reliance on coal and reducing the volume of waste ending up at landfill.
The Group’s types of waste are presented in the chart below.
Recycled Waste
Natpak through its chipping machine crushes branded plastic waste to chips, which are bought by small enterprises for their plastic molding machines. During F2023 Natpak recycled 744 tonnes of plastics in this way as well as received 32 tonnes of clean pre-consumer plastic for recycling from customers. National Foods recycled 77 tonnes of plastic while Colcom recycled 76 tonnes.
The corrugated box manufacturer, Alpha Packaging, recycled 1 037 tonnes of waste cardboard and recycled paper to make mulch to produce egg trays. 5.8 tonnes of rejected Tetra Pak reusable packaging was supplied by Prodairy to its local community based organisation, Clean Marondera, who converted the packaging into shopping bags.
For plastics, which are non-recyclable and are not halogenated, National Foods’ cyclonic boilers were the best waste disposal solution turning waste into energy, within permitted air pollution parameters. During F2023 Profeeds sent 122 tonnes and Prodairy 118 tonnes of waste to the cyclonic boiler, resulting in a total of 1 801 tonnes of waste being used for energy, further reducing the amount of waste disposed at landfills.
Sustainable Resource Use
Efficiency in the use of materials is key to the Group’s objective to reduce our negative environmental impact as well as a driver for profitability.
By setting objectives with corresponding targets, each business is working towards optimising the use of natural resources with the aim to improve the efficiency of production processes and systems. The efficient use of resources translates to reduce cost of production as well as reduce negative impacts on the environment.
Due to the challenged grid power availability during the reporting year, the total electricity used by the Group dropped by 25% from 133 637 MWh in F2022 to 100 437 MWh in F2023.
The Innscor Group of businesses recorded 4 225 985 litres of diesel used to run generators as a result of power outages experienced throughout the reporting year; an increase of 115% compared to F2022.
The Group used in total 1 659 748 m3 of water which 8% was sourced from municipal water provided by the Municipalities and 79% from borehole water – as reflected in the Water Usage per Business chart above. Water being a finite and vulnerable natural resource, the Group is continuing to investigate ways to minimise our water footprint throughout the Group.
As the graphs show, the Group continues to rely heavily on borehole water, especially in the Harare area. Due to the expansion of the Group’s businesses’ operations, the reporting year saw an overall increase of 21% in the amount of water used.
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
The effects of climate change have become a global concern for all businesses. The Group recognises that our operations contribute to climate change in some way and it is therefore the Group’s responsibility to ensure that its businesses respond proactively to calls for climate change protection and mitigation.
Overview
Changes in climate can in turn have an impact on our businesses, particularly those that rely heavily on water and on agricultural inputs. This potentially very important impact is recognised by the Group and is being taken into account in future business plans.
The Group anticipates that climate related changes affecting its businesses would include changes in weather patterns. The impact of climate change further afield can create uncertainty by affecting the Group’s supply chain requiring that the Group adapts its supply chain strategies in order to mitigate potential disruptions.
Carbon Footprint
The Group recognises that its operations produce Greenhouse Gas emissions and reports on its carbon footprint across all its businesses. The Group continues to use the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) (United Kingdom’s) UK Government GHG (Greenhouse Gases) Conversion Factors. The information is presented as tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tonnes CO2e) to indicate the global warming potential (GWP) of GHGs, expressed in terms of the GWP of one unit of carbon dioxide (CO2). The GWPs used in the calculations of CO2e are based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) over a 100-year period. Electricity carbon footprint factors are taken from those developed using IPCC factors by applying the Zimbabwean electrical grid parameters, including both renewable and non-renewable sources as found on https://www.carbonfootprint.com/ international_electricity_factors.html.
When reporting on GHGs, there are three scopes of emission which are to be included in the calculations:
Scope 1 - Calculations including emissions from direct fuel use
Scope 2 - Calculations including emissions from indirect sources – electricity
Scope 3 - Calculations including indirect emissions not included in Scope 2, e.g. business travel, shipment of goods.
The Group’s carbon footprint is presented below, calculated for Scope 1 and 2.
Scope 1: Direct Emissions
Scope 1 relates to direct emission arising from business activities within our control and ownership. DEFRA Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors 2023 were used for these calculations.
The carbon footprint was calculated based on the fuel used for the production processes only.
This includes the use of coal as well as diesel used to run ovens, boilers and generators. In this reporting year, the scope of the Scope 1 calculation has been expanded to include the fleet fuel usage of all the vehicles owned by the businesses. This has been separated out as seen in the table below (click for full size).
Scope 2: Indirect Emissions
Scope 2 relates to the emissions arising from the use of electricity generated by a third party or sources over which a company has no control. The data below, including the historical data, has been calculated based on www.carbonfootprint.com/ international_electricity_factors.html’s IPCC calculation value of 0.396065919kgCO2e/kWh for Zimbabwe (click for full size).
Carbon Footprint for Scope 1 per Business (%)
In this year’s report each business’ Scope 1 carbon footprint includes coal and diesel used to run ovens, boilers and generators plus the fuel to run company owned fleet vehicles.
Carbon Footprint for Scope 2 per Business (%)
The Scope 2 carbon footprint focuses purely on emissions from indirect sources which applies to the use of electricity.
