Water management

Water is an essential resource for our operations, used in various ways across our facilities, including to cool our processes and to produce steam. It is used with other materials during manufacturing. With water scarcity as an emerging concern for our operating areas, carefully managing our water consumption is key to our strategy.

In 2023, we defined a roadmap for our water strategy. We are committed to implementing a comprehensive water policy across all manufacturing sites by 2024. Recognizing the importance of preserving water quality and availability, we are focused on taking immediate actions wherever necessary.

For more details, please see our case studies at the end of this section, as well our case studies linked to waste in the previous section.

Water withdrawal, use and release

Where possible and available, we draw water from groundwater wells, or nearby sources, such as rivers and lakes. Where groundwater use is not a possibility, we rely on water supplied by municipalities.

Withdrawn water is for various purposes at our facilities:

As a coolant

Steam production

Product generation

Cleaning & sanitary purposes

We use and dispose of water in various ways, always respecting and adhering to the local requirements and regulations, drawing from industry best practices. This includes releasing water back into water bodies or municipal water streams, discharging it into wastewater treatment plants or incinerating hazardous wastewater.

Cooling water in Visp

Located near the river Rhone in Visp, Switzerland, our largest production site benefits from the naturally cold waters of the Swiss Alps, maintaining a temperature of 4°C - 8°C throughout the year. This unique advantage eliminates the need for energy-intensive cooling towers, allowing us to operate our facilities with minimal environmental impact.

In our commitment to sustainable practices, we are currently evaluating our water usage at the site to ensure efficient and responsible use of this precious resource. By identifying areas where improvements can be made, we aim to reduce our water consumption by implementing a new monitoring system that will provide us with valuable insights and enable us to develop effective strategies for conservation.

Looking forward to 2024

Looking ahead to 2024, we are dedicated to continuing our efforts to meet the targets set in 2023 and collaborating closely with our manufacturing sites to protect and preserve this vital natural asset for future generations.

Highlights

Kourim's water initiative: pioneering quality & sustainability

In late 2023, we commissioned a water treatment facility at our Kouřim facility in the Czech Republic to create a sustainable source of high-quality drinking water essential for our production processes. Previously our facility was reliant on municipal water, and we sought to enhance access to this resource by fortifying our own water reservoir through a new plant that purifies river water that meets drinking standards. The treatment begins at a collection point in the river slightly upstream from where the treated water is reintroduced. Through various filtration stages, organic residues are eliminated, followed by chlorination and transfer via a new pipeline to our site. Rigorous testing is conducted to ensure the water meets the stringent quality requirements for food-grade products.

We implemented several innovative enhancements at Kouřim, including the installation of a heat pump for our new building's heating system. This technology harnesses heat produced by microorganisms in the aerobic phase of wastewater treatment, yielding a conversion rate of 3 kWh of heat from 1 kWh of electricity, a significant increase from the previous direct electrical heating method that offered a 1:1 conversion rate. These improvements not only sustain the production of high-quality drinking water at the site but contribute to reduce our environmental impact by freeing up municipal water resources for the local community.

Optimizing water management: a new solution at Williamsport

In 2022, our Williamsport, Pennsylvania facility began implementation of an ongoing project to better manage and monitor both our stormwater and process water treatment systems. Team members implemented a wastewater technology designed to separate our wastewater and stormwater collection, with the goal of reducing both our process waste and energy use.

Before this project, on-site effluents and stormwater were collected through a trench system. While this design effectively transferred the process water to our treatment system, most stormwater collected did not require further treatment before being discharged. As a result, the overall volume of wastewater processed by our system was much higher than needed.

With the new system, the wastewater generated from our internal operations will not be combined with stormwater and will be routed to a new above ground treatment system.

Our trenches will remain in place to collect stormwater, which will be tested for contaminants before being discharged off site. Separating our process waste stream from our on-site stormwater and moving the wastewater treatment system above ground allows us to enhance process monitoring while significantly decreasing our overall on-site treatment requirement. As part of our new treatment system, we will introduce a dewatering system to reduce solids, resulting in faster settling times in our on-site wastewater and increasing our throughput.

Overall, the new system reflects our commitment to water by treating only processed water and reducing our demand on publicly owned treatment works.

Learn more

Air quality / GHG

Waste management