GB’s biggest soft drinks factory goes green
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
LONDON, 13 August 2008 - Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd (CCE) is working with Ecotricity to submit a planning application for a 2MW wind turbine at CCE's Wakefield manufacturing and distribution site. If the application is successful as much as 1,800 tonnes of C02 could be saved annually. That's equivalent to the carbon produced by more than 600 cars over a year.
CCE's plans for a wind turbine in Wakefield are part of a programme of initiatives designed to improve the company's use of energy and make the business more environmentally sustainable. Since 2001 CCE has reduced the energy used across its manufacturing operations in Great Britain by 16 percent.2 CCE is also working with the Carbon Trust to measure and verify the carbon footprint of certain products available in Great Britain.
Ecotricity will build the wind turbine, operate and maintain it at the CCE site in Wakefield. In the process it will provide CCE with a dedicated source of onsite green energy. Ecotricity pioneered the use of wind turbines to power industry, building the UK's first fully commercial wind turbine for Sainsbury's in 2001. Since then it has been working with other household names such as Michellin, B&Q , The Prudential, Lotus Cars and The Co operative Bank.
A public exhibition will be held at the Outwood Church Institute on 19th August to give the local community the opportunity to understand more about the project, and to discuss CCE's plans. Members of the team will be present to talk about the plans and answer questions. The exhibition will then move to Outwood Library from the 20th August until the 3rd September.
Details will also be available on-line at Ecotricity's website - www.ecotricity.co.uk/cce-wakefield. Once a full application is submitted it will be available to view at the Wakefield Planning Department.
Erika Coghlan, VP Public Affairs and Communications, Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd said:"Our Wakefield site is the biggest soft drinks factory in Great Britain. The potential to harness wind energy at such a significant plant is a very positive move and we're looking forward to engaging with the local community to talk about these plans."
1 This calculation is based on a Ford Mondeo 1.8, averaging
10,000 miles a year. Source: 'Climate Care'. http://www.climatecare.org/
2 During 2006, CCE's manufacturing operations in Great Britain
used an average of 81kWh of energy per tonne of product produced -
a 16 percent reduction since 2001.
Notes to editors
About Ecotricity Formed in 1995, Ecotricity is an electricity supplier and wind park developer. They've built one in eight of the UK's wind farms, and supply over 35,000 customers across the UK. Ecotricity's sole mission is to change the way electricity is made in the UK. Last year alone Ecotricity spent about £30M building new wind projects. Ecotricity adheres rigourously to it's own good neighbour policy which means that if it cannot be certain that a turbine will not adversely impact it's neighbours, it will not proceed with the project. Ecotricity pioneered brownfield (or Urban) wind energy deployment -encouraging and enabling big business to adopt wind energy as a fuel source. Under their Merchant Wind Power scheme Ecotricity built the UK's first truly commercial wind turbine for Sainsbury's and have since built for Ford, Michelin, The Prudential, Co-op bank and Bristol Port. We're building now for B&Q, Lotus cars and many others.
About Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd. Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd is a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc, the world's largest marketer, producer and distributor of the products of The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC). Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd manufactures and distributes TCCC products, as well as products for other brand-owners, throughout England, Scotland and Wales, and employs around 4,600 people. Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) is committed to minimizing the environmental impact of its products and operations. The key areas of focus are around sustainable packaging, water stewardship, and energy and climate protection. CCE has made good progress in these areas, although there is still more to be done. For example in Great Britain, energy use across manufacturing operations has been reduced by 16% since 2001; packaging has also been reduced - the iconic glass Coke bottle is now 20% lighter; the amount of water used per litre of product has been cut by 21% since 2001; and 90% of waste at sites is now recovered or recycled.
