Mondelēz International issued a press release to announce a major restructuring of its energy supply. The owner of a number of chocolate brands including Cadbury’s and Green and Blacks, has been moving their entire global operation to renewable sources in an effort to meet their target of a 10% reduction in end to end CO² emissions by 2025.
In the UK, where the company runs six production centres, Mondelēz said it was now taking all of the electricity for those plants from renewable energy sources in the UK. Considering the local weather, it is likely the majority of this will be generated from wind turbines, which is a resource the UK has in abundance and which, until recently has been under-appreciated by many of us living on the blustry island.
UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has recently emphasised the importance of renewable energy to the United Kingdom, as the country’s North Sea resources are becoming depleted and with concerns over energy security stemming from an uncomfortable reliance on imported Russian gas. Johnson did a 180º turn around from comments made in previous years, in which he said wind power couldn’t blow the skin off a rice pudding. Mr Johnson now says the UK will become “The Saudi Arabia of Wind”, in reference to Saudi’s dominance of oil.
Mondelēz International’s US manufacturing operations already moved to renewable energy in June 2019, when they signed a huge 12-year deal with a Texas-based solar farm to supply them with enough green power to reduce their CO² emissions by 80,000 metric tons each year. That equated to 5% of the companies global manufacturing emissions.
Other Mondelēz sites in Mexico, Australia and New Zealand have already gone 100% renewable, and it’s clear that the company is following through with their 2025 goals for improving this aspect of their environmental footprint.
