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Social, societal and environmental responsibility
5.2 Information concerning Danone's social, societal and environmental performance in compliance with the Grenelle II law
DANONE
REGISTRATION DOCUMENT 2015
184
Pollution and waste management
Measures to prevent, reduce or repair direct discharges into the air, water and soil
Danone's activities result in discharges into the air (greenhouse gases and refrigerant gases, see section hereafter), water (wastewater)
and soil (sludge from treatment facilities and the livestock farming at certain subsidiaries). These discharges are monitored under the
GREEN program (see section
Global Risk Evaluation for the Environment (GREEN) program
above).
Quantities of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) after on-site treatment discharged by the production sites
Year ended December 31
2014
2015
Final discharge of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)
(a)
(in thousands of tons)
6.4
6.3
Net COD ratio
(a)
(kg/ton of product)
0.20
0.18
(a) Production Site Environment Scope (see
Methodology Note
).
The Company's net Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) (i.e. after treat-
ment) per ton of product fell by 7.9% in 2015 relative to 2014. This
decrease was mainly linked to the Poços de Caldas site in Brazil,
which improved the performance of its facility.
On a like-for-like basis between 2014 and 2015 (see
Methodology
Note
), this ratio fell by approximately 20.3%. This decline was due
in part to the action plans implemented in 2015 at the subsidiaries
responsible for the Company's highest pollution levels. These plans
focused mainly on reducing “product losses” in wastewater and/or
improving the facilities' purification efficiency.
Measures to prevent, recycle and eliminate waste
Waste management at Danone's production sites
Danone consolidates the quantities of waste generated by the in-
dustrial sites according to four categories (see
Methodology Note
):
hazardous waste, non-hazardous inorganic waste, non-hazardous
organic waste and wastewater treatment plant sludge (does not
include product returns and whey, the latter being a by-product
typically reused by a third party) and monitors the percentage of
this waste when it is recovered. Such recovery may occur through
recycling, reuse, composting or waste-to-energy conversion. The
production sites seek to maximize their waste recovery rate by
implementing the following measures: (i) organizing on-site waste
sorting and staff training, (ii) finding subcontractors capable of
recovering the various types of waste generated, and (iii) sharing
best practices among sites.
Quantities of waste generated by Danone's production sites (including wastewater treatment plant sludge generated by production sites)
(see Methodology Note)
Year ended December 31
2014
2015
Waste generated
(a)
Total quantity
(in thousands of tons)
307
331
Ratio of total quantity of waste per ton of product
(in kg/ton)
9.6
9.7
Recovered waste
(a)
Total quantity
(in thousands of tons)
256
272
Proportion of recovered waste
(in %)
83.3%
82.1%
(a) Production Site Environment Scope (see
Methodology Note
).
The ratio of waste generated per ton of product increased by 1.4%
between 2014 and 2015, primarily at the Poços de Caldas plant in
Brazil.
The recovery rate fell slightly from 83.3% to 82.1% between 2014
and 2015 related to the impact of closures of production sites in
2015 (Hagenow, Germany, Budapest, Hungary and Casale, Italy).
Packaging end of life: turning waste into resources
Danone seeks to expand collection and recycling of its packaging
in order to:
•
continue to support efforts to increase collection and recovery
rates for recycling in countries where waste collection is already
organized by environmental agencies;
•
when waste collection is not organized, contribute to the collec-
tion of materials used in the packaging of Danone products and
experiment with new collection systems. Four projects initiated
by the Danone Ecosystem Fund are currently underway (see
section 5.3
Funds sponsored by Danone
);
•
develop the use of recycled packaging.
Monitoring noise pollution and other forms
of pollution specific to a given business
Noise pollution at Danone's production sites is measured under the
GREEN program (see section above).