United Biscuits - Achieving Sustainability

United Biscuits’ combination of stringent measuring and managing of operational emissions and collaboration with suppliers, customers, and competitors to reduce logistics’ emissions has proved to be a strong business case as well as having significant positive impacts on the environment.

United Biscuits’ innovative solutions include a transport load sharing system that pools transport arrangements with suppliers, customers and competitors, and a initiative to run its lorries on biodiesel made from the waste vegetable oil from its snacks factories. The load sharing scheme has contributed to the reduction of vehicle mileage by 9 million miles in four years and has led to a direct saving of £13.7million in vehicle and fuel costs. In addition, it has also generated an additional £1.3million of transport revenue per annum. This has come from the collaboration with suppliers, customers, and competitors alike to collect their goods, on what would have otherwise been an empty load return journey, and deliver them to supermarkets on the return journey. This is a win-win business case for all involved as it saves on fuel and vehicle costs, drivers’ time costs, not to mention the reduction in fuel emissions.

Internally United Biscuits has a dedicated team that measures each aspect of operations to calculate where most reductions can and have been made and translate these into cost savings for the business. The team also monitors energy and water use at each office and publishes the figures every four weeks so that all employees can keep a track of their progress against targets.