Climate change

Our approach

Almarai acknowledges the potential risks posed by climate change to both food production and the environment. We are committed to minimizing our environmental footprint and promoting long-term sustainability. In 2020, we created an “Energy Roadmap” to reduce our environmental impacts and resource use. This roadmap is connected to our energy strategy, which focuses on reducing energy use, monitoring energy and switching to renewable energy. To ensure that every member of the organization comprehends their role in lowering energy consumption, Almarai has implemented training programs, awareness campaigns, and energy-saving competitions. In 2022, we released our Energy Policy and Climate Change Position Statement to enhance transparency regarding our approach to energy stewardship and the reduction of emissions.

Energy awareness is an important part of our energy management strategy and ability to capitalize on technological solutions. Our goal is to establish an energy center of excellence to serve as a platform for sharing knowledge and driving initiatives towards our strategic goals. Our energy culture focuses on three key elements: awareness, regular equipment maintenance and optimization, and continual process improvement. We make this culture accessible to our staff through training sessions, governance structures, and the implementation of best practices.

Our commitment to sustainability is also demonstrated in our approach to refrigerant gases. We understand that CFCs have a much larger impact on climate change than other emissions, and as such, we have initiated a proactive program aimed at restricting, reducing, and replacing these gases whenever feasible. This includes making our cold chain distribution system more efficient to reduce use and replacing CFCs with alternatives such as HCFCs and HFCs, which are more effective and reduce global warming emissions. We also have a rigorous maintenance and monitoring program in place to ensure that any potential leaks are identified and addressed quickly.

The Group has developed a sustainability strategy, outlining how it will improve its energy performance through efficient energy consumption and generation from sustainable sources. The strategy focuses on solar power generation, water and energy efficiency, sustainable arable farming practices, landfill waste reduction, commitment to 100% chlorofluorocarbon-free cold storage at its sales depot, and fuel efficiency measures including trailing alternative fuel vehicles.

2023 performance and initiatives

We are committed to promoting a culture of best practice amongst our colleagues and instilling an energy culture throughout the business. In 2023, we continued to develop our energy management systems. We have created an ISO roadmap which focuses on setting energy goals, ensuring commitment, energy planning, preparing to meet ISO 50001 requirements, and monitoring and measuring progress against our energy goals. We have made significant progress in the head office and dairy and juice manufacturing sites, and we are aiming for all of our Administration, Manufacturing, Sales, Distribution, and Logistics Divisions to be certified by 2025.

Our commitment to sustainability is demonstrated by the implementation of the Almarai Energy Monitoring Systems (AEMS) across the GCC (KSA, Oman, UAE, Bahrain & Kuwait). A total of 75 locations have been connected to AEMS, allowing us to better understand our energy usage and trends. Furthermore, to enhance our decision-making capabilities, we have initiated a steam efficiency project and implemented a pilot project involving combined evaporative cooling systems in our dairy and juice operations. Both projects have demonstrated significant energy savings. These endeavors are integral to our continuous commitment to diminish our environmental footprint and secure a sustainable future.

As part of our commitment to sustainability, we have set a target to increase the proportion of clean energy utilized across our Administration, Manufacturing, Sales, Distribution, and Logistics Divisions to 20% by 2025. To achieve this, we are collaborating with global power producers to establish renewable energy facilities at our locations and boost our reliance on renewable energy from the grid. For instance, since 2018, we have been implementing solar energy generation capacities at various sites. Moving into 2023, we will persist in procuring additional renewable energy while also investigating innovative applications of solar power, including its use in hot water production. Notably, we are extending our solar power initiatives not only in Hail but also in Al Kharj. Additionally, we operate several biofuel-integrated vehicles for product deliveries across the UAE, and although we initially planned to expand our biofuel sales fleet, challenges in finding a suitable biofuel supply in other regions have arisen. The introduction of biofuel vehicles largely depends on the availability of biofuel in the market. Despite these challenges, we remain dedicated to our sustainability objectives and will continue exploring alternative fuel options for our sales fleet.

Since 2022, we have been testing alternatives to standard refrigerants, such as R290, a non-toxic refrigerant with zero ozone depletion potential and a low global warming potential. In 2023, we continued to standardize our operations to use this replacement gas to help reduce our emissions and have a positive impact on climate change. We have also been working to increase the fuel efficiency of our sales, distribution, and logistics vehicles despite accomplishing our goal 2025 goal. We have maintained our energy awareness program, ‘Go Green’, in our Jeddah (KSA) since 2021, and Al Kharj and Hail (KSA) sites since 2017. The program aims to educate and bring a mindset change among employees towards energy conservation, target specific significant energy uses to reduce consumption through process improvement and alternative solutions, and engage employees in energy saving activities.

We are actively working towards achieving our 2025 goal to explore and trial alternative fuel vehicles for our sales fleet. Since the later part of 2021, we have been progressively incorporating biofuel into a growing portion of our fleet vehicles for product deliveries in the UAE. Additionally, we are in discussions with biofuel suppliers in Saudi Arabia to initiate trials and potentially adopt biofuels within the kingdom.

Almarai’s sponsorship of the Environmental Excellence Award

HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Saad bin Abdulaziz, Governor of Hail, honored Almarai Company for its diamond sponsorship of the Environmental Excellence Award in its first edition, organized by the branch of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture in the Hail region. Almarai’s sponsorship of the Environmental Excellence Award as a diamond sponsor comes within the company’s corporate social responsibility plans and programs with the aim of encouraging environmental work and spreading awareness towards securing the future of the country’s people and preserving its natural resources.