Why was HKScan’s Environmental Policy renewed?

We renewed our Environmental Policy to reflect our strategy and the expectations of our stakeholders. It had been quite a few years since the last update of our Environmental Policy, and since then both HKScan as a company and the world around us have seen major changes.

The new Environmental Policy contributes to HKScan’s responsibility programme and Zero Carbon climate plan with the goal of a carbon-neutral food chain by the end of 2040.

How did HKScan’s Environmental Policy change?

Responsibility work is the basis of HKScan’s strategy, so we made our Environmental Policy clearer and more concrete. The policy applies not only to our own operations but also to our supply chain.

We clearly defined our key environmental principles that guide our work. In brief, our principles are as follows:

  • We follow environmental legislation and regulations and cooperate with the authorities and our stakeholders.
  • We reduce the environmental and climate impact at our production plants and in transport, for example by
    • improving energy efficiency,
    • reducing energy consumption,
    • switching to renewable energy, and
    • reducing water consumption.
  • We work to improve material efficiency and promote circular economy throughout our value chain by, among other things,
    • developing our packaging,
    • following the waste hierarchy,
    • minimising production waste and
    • making efficient use of animal raw material.
  • We promote the reduction of environmental impacts in primary production at our contract farms and our own farms, together with our contract farmers and other partners.
  • We take environmental aspects into consideration in procurement, subcontracting and investments.
  • We work to preserve biodiversity and forests.
  • We require that our supply chain does not cause deforestation and we do not support the conversion of other natural ecosystems.

How is the Environmental Policy reflected in the practical work?

Our Environmental Policy emphasises the systematic nature, responsiveness and development of environmental work. We carefully review the policy with our personnel in all our production units. Our employees make a large number of initiatives to reduce our environmental impact, and we have achieved good results through their implementation. At our Forssa plant, for example, we managed to reduce our meltwater use by nearly 50 per cent thanks to a process change suggested by one of our employees!

You can read our Environmental Policy on our website!