Corporate Responsibility
- Health and Safety Policy
- Environmental Policy
- Targets & Objectives
- Climate Change
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Climate Change
Climate Change
What is Biffa doing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions?
Sensitivity to climate change is a major priority in our environmental management programme in relation to the mitigation of our negative impacts, enhancement of our positive effects, and adapting the business to the climate change already occurring.
The majority of our emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, two key greenhouse gases, arise from landfilled wastes and the consumption of fossil fuel by our transport.
Landfill gas emissions
Our most significant environmental impact arises from the waste in our landfill sites. Our focus is therefore on controlling and limiting the emissions of landfill gases.
Methane is highly combustible and can be burnt to produce renewable energy. Through continuing improvements in gas capture efficiencies we are increasing the generation of renewable energy.
We work hard to reduce our emissions by improving the efficiency with which we collect landfill gas, flaring it when it is not being used to produce renewable energy, investing in our renewable energy generation portfolio, improving vehicle efficiencies and reducing mileage.
We have internal targets to increase landfill gas capture rates from our operational sites and closed sites.
Renewable energy
Our specialist Gas to Energy team works to install and maintain equipment to capture landfill gas and utilise it in generators to produce renewable electricity. In producing renewable energy and exporting it to the national grid, we are cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions and helping to reduce the UK’s reliance on electricity produced from fossil fuel.
At present we generate nearly 25 times more electricity than we use, thus directly offsetting our greenhouse gas emissions through the generation of renewable electricity and indirectly through the supply of waste derived fuels.
Our plants on the Isle of Wight and Leicester process household waste and produce waste derived fuel (WDF), which can be used as a fossil fuel substitute used in the cement industry. When WDF is used as a substitute fuel in the place of other fossil fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas, it results in a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases.
Transport emissions
Our waste collection fleet is another major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, producing carbon dioxide together with smaller amounts of sulphur and nitrogen oxides.
To mitigate the impact our fleet has on the environment, we have introduced a programme to reduce our fleet mileages by improving the route density of waste collection rounds, which in turn leads to greater fuel efficiency. We monitor the performance of each vehicle and driver in order to identify variances and correct these where necessary, either by repairing defective equipment or correcting poor driving behaviour through training.
We have computer based routing systems to optimise the efficiency of our waste collection service, which is becoming increasingly important as increased recycling results in increased waste collections, and the likelihood of increased mileage. Most of our compaction mode industrial collection fleet have installed on-board weighing systems to enable us to optimise vehicle payloads and to collect weight-based data from a significant proportion of our customers; enabling us to provide better waste management solutions. These actions therefore have direct commercial benefits through increased fuel efficiency and corresponding environmental benefits.
Improvements to electronic communications particularly telephone conferencing and “Webinars” also contribute to reducing our travel related emissions.
We are also seeking to increase the volume of bio-diesel we utilise to reduce our direct emissions of CO2.
Emissions from waste treatment recovery
As the landfill market experiences a reduction in the proportion of waste sent to landfill, our electricity consumption and consequently our indirect greenhouse gas emissions will grow in proportion, as will our transport emissions. However we envisage that these will be increasingly offset through more sustainable waste management solutions.
