ST1-04: Why Green House Gas Balances are Good for Business

The British Sugar Group (BSG) is amongst the leading sugar producers in the world. It has 39 factories, in 8 countries, at the last count, processing sugar beet and cane to produce sugar, and a wide range of co-products, including bioethanol.  When the UK Government decided to encourage biofuel production it also insisted on carbon and sustainability reporting of all biofuel in the UK.  Because of this, BSG designed and integrated their bioethanol plant into existing sugar process to minimise overall fuel consumption.  BSG has also worked with its beet growers to optimise agricultural inputs and this has reduced fertiliser consumption significantly over the years.  Not only does this reduce green house gas emissions, it also means lower cost. Another area which has improved the cost base, improved profitability and reduced overall GHG emissions has been to diversify into other products from the same inputs to the existing process, like producing tomatoes from the waste heat and CO2 from our power plant and to cogenerate electricity for export to the local grid.  It doesn't stop there.  We have done a piece of work to benchmark what we do with the worlds best, this has shown that there is great scope to improve in many areas, and also shows, when you look at the world as a whole there is tremendous scope for us all to improve.  If we all improve the basics and add on the satellites we will not only improve GHG balances, but also improve profitability.