OUR MISSION: BETTER CLIMATE POSITIVE
The fact is that climate change plays a key role for us, as any change has a major impact on the harvesting of fruit and nuts. At the same time, the origin of our dried fruit and nut kernels is largely distant. On the one hand, because we only find certain qualities in special places around the world. Secondly, because our natural products can only be grown in special regions. Transporting raw materials and packaging materials in a resource- and energy-saving and climate-friendly way is a major challenge.
Another challenge is that we can only influence individual parts of the value chain and are dependent on the sustainable commitment of our partners and suppliers. As a first step, we have been working on reducing our own energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Seevetal since 2019. At every point where there is a new state of the art, we optimize with the aim of becoming more energy efficient.
REDUCE THG EMISSIONS
This enabled us to achieve extensive emission savings at our Seevetal site in 2020. From incoming raw materials to outgoing finished goods, our production has been certified climate-neutral since 2021. In our opinion, however, climate neutrality is no longer enough to counteract climate change.
We are going one step further: with our own climate project on the island of Rügen, we are now binding more CO2 in total than we consume for the production of our goods thanks to reforestation. Since January 2022, our production site has been climate-positive from incoming raw materials to outgoing finished goods (certified by the German Institute for Sustainability and Economy).
CLIMATE-NEUTRAL SUPPLY CHAIN
We are committed to working with our partners and suppliers to create a climate-neutral supply chain in the future. As a first step on this path, we believe it is important to use scientifically sound values as a basis for climate protection and to develop our own climate strategy for Farmer's Snack.
We are therefore following the guidelines of the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) and want to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 46% by 2030, starting from the base year 2019. The GHG emission targets set (Scope 1 & 2) go hand in hand with the necessary savings to maintain 1.5 ℃ global warming.
What is the SBTi? Since 2015, CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, the World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have been working on the Science Based Targets initiative to set a science-based climate target.
OUR CO2 FOOTPRINT
As a medium-sized company of our size, the calculation of Scope 3 is not mandatory. However, we believe it is important to look at all scopes (1-3) in order to implement our climate strategy effectively. We have therefore commissioned the creation of a corporate carbon footprint (CCF) - also known as a "CO2 footprint" for short - for the first time for 2023. In line with our climate strategy, we are now aiming to achieve specific climate targets for all scopes in the coming years.
Good environment
Looking back: Our site is under construction
Our current location with administration, production and warehouses will be built in Seevetal in 2011. The environmental requirements differ significantly from the current state of the art. Since 2011, we have been working with heat recovery in the production room air technology and we have tried to adapt the building infrastructure to the use of process waste heat, which today serves as a good basis for further optimization. Since 2017, we have been heating the raw materials warehouse with waste heat from the compressors.
2019
Packaging reduction
We are reducing packaging sizes and can thus save over 60,000 kg of packaging material per year. The "film barometer" shows how much packaging material we save on which products.
2019
Efficient waste management
We recycle: Our own waste processing and more efficient waste disposal save us around 6,000 kg of CO2.
2019
Everything is illuminated
By converting to new LED lighting, we have been saving around 430,000 kWh of electricity for lighting and air conditioning in production and warehouses every year since 2019. This is because the "cooler" lighting also reduces the temperature in the halls, meaning that less air conditioning is required.
Until 2020
Expansion of new packaging machines
We are optimizing: For three years, we are converting our packaging machines, resulting in a saving of 14.7 tons of film per year. By "film" we mean the packaging material for our products.
2020
Renewal of compressor technology
We focus on environmentally friendly production and participate in the BAFA subsidy for compressors in order to bring our compressor technology up to the latest state of the art.
2021
climate-neutral production fromincoming raw materials to outgoing finished goods
Thanks to the previous comprehensive emission savings, we have been producing climate-neutrally at the Seevetal production site for the first time since 2021, from incoming raw materials to outgoing finished goods.
2021
Use of nitrogen generators
In food production, high-purity nitrogen is used as a protective gas, which is purchased in high-pressure cylinders or tanks. With our own nitrogen generators, we now produce nitrogen from compressed air ourselves. This corresponds to a saving of approx. 40,000 kg of CO2 per year.
July 2021
100% GREEN ELECTRICITY
Since the summer, our Seevetal production facility and flagship store have been running on 100% green electricity.
Since January 2022
From climate-neutral to climate-positive production site
Farmer's Snack was certified as a climate-neutral production site by the Institute for Sustainability and Economics in summer 2021. Following the "avoid, reduce, offset" approach, we have been involved in our climate protection project "Klimawald auf Rügen" since January 2022 and offset more CO2 emissions than are generated during production. Our Seevetal production site has been independently audited and certified as climate-positive since January 2022.
2023
We are going solar
We are installing our first photovoltaic system (25 kWp) on the roof of our site, which was built in 2023. With this technical measure, we avoid 11,200 kg of CO2 emissions per year.The second solar project will follow in 2024 on the roof of our new and ultra-modern warehouse: With a 99 kWp PV system, we will then save an additional 40,200 kg of CO2 per year.
Outlook 2024
We save more thermal energy
The compressors will be cooled entirely via a separate circuit, which means that 100% of the waste heat can be fed into our heating network. This means that we can manage without our gas heating system until temperatures drop slightly below zero, which is equivalent to avoiding 75,000 kg of CO2 per year.
