Hayes Middlesex, United Kingdom — Snack maker United Biscuits has met or come close to many of its environmental goals years early, leading it to set even more aggressive targets or shorten its deadlines.

The company's goals cover packaging, water, waste, palm oil and emissions. United Biscuits launched its Achieving Sustainability program at the start of 2008, and recently announced its achievements from 2009.

Although United Biscuits does not use water as an ingredient in any of its products, it does use a substantial amount of water to wash and transport potatoes and raw chips before they are fried.

The company spent £1.9 million ($2.8 million) to build a water recycling plant at its Teesside facility, which produces all of its McCoy's brand crisps. The plant helped United Biscuits cuts its water use by 28 percent, exceeding its goal of reducing water by 25 percent 10 years ahead of schedule. Its new goal is to reduce water by 45 percent by 2020.

With a 13 percent reduction in packaging, the company is on track to meet its target of cutting packaging by 20 percent by 2015. United Biscuits made the film for its snack bags 17 percent thinner, shrunk the volume of its mini biscuit bags by 30 percent and switched its Masterpieces selection box from tin to cardboard, among other changes.

Due to its packaging achievements, United Biscuits is declining to sign onto the second phase of the Courtauld Commitment, a voluntary agreement among food companies in the U.K. to reduce the carbon impact of packaging by 10 percent, reduce household food and drink waste by 4 percent and reduce packaging waste throughout supply chains by 5 percent, all by 2012.

"We do not believe we can achieve a further 10 percent saving in the next three years and have therefore not signed up to CC2, but will continue to focus on achieving our own packaging target," the company told Packaging News.

Another goal United Biscuits met early was on transportation carbon emissions, which it cut 29 percent since 2005, exceeding its target of a 22 percent reduction. It was able to achieve an 8 percent improvement in fuel efficiency through a range of efforts like converting waste vegetable oil into biodiesel, improving load efficiency, providing driver training and incentives, using satellite tracking to monitor fuel economy and avoid congestion, and collaborating with retail customers, suppliers and competitors. The company plans to now lower emissions 40 percent by 2012.

As for factory emissions, United Biscuits cut those 5 percent in 2009, bringing its total reduction to 28 percent since 1995. Its goal is to reduce factory emissions by 35 percent by 2020. Facilities now use energy management systems to monitor where and when energy is being used in order to avoid wasted energy, and its Northern Europe operations switched to a utility that generates power from renewable resources.

When the company laid out its goals in 2008, it was already diverting 97 percent of its food waste from landfills, and now sends no food waste to the trash. It has also reduced non-food waste sent to landfills by 44 percent, and now aims to send zero waste to landfills by 2012 instead of its original target of 2015.

And although United Biscuits does not have a specific goal for using less palm oil, it has reduced its palm oil use by 40 percent and says that all of the palm oil that it does use in products will be from certified sustainable sources starting mid-year.

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