Climate change & energy

Due to operational issues in Autumn and Winter 2019 in a part of the Farm Frites Egypt factory, the data gathering was disrupted and inconsistent, therefore only data from Farm Frites Egypt until August 2019 has been used in the consolidation of figures presented in this chapter.

The graphs below show Scope 1 & 2 emissions intensities, consolidated for the Farm Frites Group, from five factories in the period 2015-2019, in kg CO2-eq per tonne of product. The energy consumption in GJ per tonne and the share of renewable energy as a percentage are also reported.

Scope 1 & 2 emissions [kg CO2-eq/ tonne]

The figure above shows the development of scope 1 and scope 2 emissions in kg CO2 per tonne product. Scope 1 are emissions related to the burning of natural gas used for steam and heat production and scope 2 are emissions related to electricity purchase. Compared to 2018, the emissions went down with about 5%. By 2030 we would like to reduce the footprint with 50% based on 2018 figures. The 5% reduction can be mainly attributed to efficient usage of the production line. When full capacity is used, relatively less energy per tonne is needed. Furthermore, energy savings projects and energy management cause a better housekeeping of energy. For example, in Belgium and the Netherlands a yearly 2% reduction of energy consumption is required by the government. The factory in Poland is increasingly buying more local green electricity, which also contributes to lower scope 2 emissions.

Energy consumption [GJ/ tonne]

The energy consumption is an indicator of how much energy is used to produce one tonne of potato products (frites flakes, specialties). As the graph demonstrates, the trend on energy consumption is going in the right direction. Compared to 2018 the energy consumption was reduced with about 4.6%, a positive result. However, seen from the longer trend since 2015, some years are going up and some down. The main reason is instalment of a second flakes line in Poland in 2018, this increases the energy consumption per tonne because flakes require more heating than frites. For the upcoming years, focus is required to be able to achieve the goal of 5% less energy consumption per tonne product by 2025.

The share of renewable energy is expressed as the share of non-fossil fuel-based energy sources such as wind, solar and biogas compared to the total usage of energy. The target is to generate at least 15% of the energy usage from renewable sources; however, there is a stabilising trend, with around 5% currently generated from renewable sources. The main reason is that large scale renewable energy projects such as wind and solar are very difficult to get constructed with the current regulations in countries as Netherlands and Belgium. We expect the coming years that we can install a large solar field in the Netherlands.