Reducing Natural Resource Consumption in Manufacturing

Soaring energy costs in the last year are significantly affecting many manufacturers’ bottom lines.

- Simon Copley

Separately, the consumer pressure on FMCG brands to be more sustainable is only increasing. Where once consumers used to equate the concept of sustainability just with packaging and recycling, now their awareness also includes the natural resources used during manufacture.

Combine both of these factors and it’s no wonder that manufacturers are actively examining the sustainability of their manufacturing processes and urgently looking for new ways to reduce their consumption of natural resources like gas, electricity and water.

But it’s not always obvious how best to reduce resource consumption during manufacture without affecting the final product quality. This article recommends an approach to investigate your manufacturing process and unlock sustainability improvements, focusing not on the resources that end up as ingredients or materials in the final product, but those used for heating, washing and other processes.

MORE SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING 

The motivation for manufacturers to increase sustainability is generally for two reasons:

• To help reduce environmental impact either from carbon emissions or by-products such as wastewater. As the world faces the challenge of drastically reducing emissions and consumption of natural resources, manufacturers need to play their part.

• To counteract increasing operating costs for energy, water, or other consumables.

Many manufacturers have set themselves tough challenges to reduce natural resource consumption, driven by one or both of the two factors above. But the relative importance of each factor depends on the situation in question: