Nourishing the Future at General Mills

General Mills formalized its sustainable development initiative in 2003 that focuses improving the management of the natural resource base used in running their business. In the last two years, five-year goals for the plants were established to reduce:

• Water usage rate by 5 percent
• Energy consumption rate by 15 percent
• Greenhouse gas emission rate by 15 percent
• Solid waste generation rate by 15 percent

In fiscal 2007, General Mills facilities used the equivalent of 585 kilowatt hours (KWH) per metric ton of production. In the second year of the five-year goal, General Mills used the same amount of energy per metric ton of product as the two previous years. This is partially explained due to changes in product mixes each year as well as the fact that most of the first two year’s efforts have focused on education and awareness of energy usage. General Mills expects to report energy reductions over the next few years as a consequence of all of the work done over the last two years.

In fiscal 2007, our total emission of greenhouse gases due to energy use in production facilities, expressed as corbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents, was 0.23 metric ton equivalents per metric ton of production – the same as in 2006.

Our total water use rate, in fiscal 2007, was ca. 2.23 cubic meters per metric ton of production – the same as in 2006. Water is critical to food manufacturing. It is used as an ingredient, a coolant, and to clean and sanitize manufacturing equipment. We track the usage of water at each facility to identify areas of high usage and target opportunities for water conservation.

The General Mills plant in Joplin, Missouri, was able to reduce its water usage by more than 14 million gallons per year by reusing water from air compressors for its cooling towers, switching to more dry cleaning that wet cleaning, and installing a high pressure, low volume cleaning system.

Source: www.generalmills.com