Environment
Globally, PZ Cussons is fully committed to playing its part to protect and preserve the environment for the benefit of its employees, customers and the public at large.
PZ Cussons Nigeria ensures that it complies with environmental laws and regulations and continues to identify the ways in which its operations impact upon the environment and to find effective ways to reduce that impact. In particular, we recognise climate change as a global challenge for all businesses and for society in general and are committed to contributing to the fight against climate change, not only in our manufacturing operations and supply chain but also in the wider arena of product design and use.
The UK Innovation Centre is a flagship for the Group in respect of environmentally sensitive manufacturing processes and the Group worked closely with the Environmental Agency in respect of its design and construction. As part of this process, there has been significant focus on the extent to which waste can be reduced within manufacturing processes and the output and learning from initiatives undertaken at other UK facilities in respect of effluents, packaging waste and water usage have been incorporated into the Centre’s design.
In line with our vision to achieve top-line growth through consumer driven innovation, we have created the African Network Services with specialized centres of innovation teams for the African markets. The Network Services aims to deliver world class solutions that will add considerable value to our corporate goals and minimize unfavorable impact on the environment.
Energy usage
Within our business and supply chain we are working to combat the effects of climate change on two fronts:
- Through reducing the energy we use
- Through exploring and utilising alternative energy sources
Significant recent initiatives in reducing energy use include:
- The closure of outdated manufacturing sites and the transfer of production to more efficient sites.
- Choosing to invest in state of the art manufacturing facilities in our Nutrition business in Nigeria
- Over the last two years, the development and implementation worldwide of a soap manufacturing process which uses less energy per tonne of soap manufactured
- A Group initiative to move to more locally sourced raw materials and so decrease freight usage; for examples the local sourcing of packaging materials in Nigeria.
The Group recognises that it can reduce both its carbon footprint and energy consumption by exploring and utilising alternative energy sources. The most significant project in this area over the last two years has been focused on Nigeria which accounts for a significant proportion of the Group’s manufacturing output. There has been significant investment in plant and machinery to enable power generation from gas rather than oil resulting in a reduction in energy usage and the move to a greener fossil fuel.
In addition to the above initiatives, each operating unit within the Group is continually reviewing energy usage, looking for ways to reduce energy use and assessing alternate energy sources.
Product design and use
We also work to reduce the impact of the Group’s operations on the environment by:
- Optimising product design
- Optimising product use
