General Mills improves energy efficiency by 20%
In 2012, General Mills set a 10-year goal to improve energy efficiency in the company’s 26 largest U.S.-based plants by 20% (from 2012 to 2022).
In 2012, General Mills set a 10-year goal to improve energy efficiency in the company’s 26 largest U.S.-based plants by 20% (from 2012 to 2022). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that General Mills achieved its goal four years ahead of plan, with a total efficiency improvement of 20.4% since fiscal year 2012.
“We are honored to be recognized by the DOE for our progress to improve our efficiency and reduce our energy consumption,” said John Church, chief supply chain officer and global business solutions officer at General Mills. “We started this journey by looking within our walls back in 2005 and since then have extended our commitments and work across our entire value chain. We have to own the entirety of our impact, and this is one of the many ways General Mills is working to reduce our impact on the environment.”
The company’s 20% improvement represents a total of over 2 million MMBTU’s (one million British thermal units) of energy (combined electricity and natural gas) over the six years. In fiscal 2018, more than 60 energy efficiency and reduction projects were completed across the company. These improvement projects saved over 12 million kWh (kilowatt hours), delivered $4.8 million in cost savings, and avoided nearly 6.000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
As part of the company’s GHG emissions reduction goal, each General Mills production facility has a target to reduce energy use by 2% annually, normalized to production. During fiscal 2018, this rate decreased by 2% compared to the prior year; absolute energy use decreased by 7%.