Energy Efficiency

Energy & greenhouse gas emissions

 Our use of energy represents our most significant environmental impact in terms of usage of non-renewable resources and the emission of greenhouse gasses which contribute to climate change.

Energy Management Programme

In 2005 Unilever Sri Lanka began a formal site-wide Energy Management Programme aimed at finding ways to reduce the amount of fossil fuel we burn to power our operations, and thus reduce our emission of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide. 85% of the total energy requirement at the facility is for the generation of steam for its manufacturing processes, so it was the generation and usage of steam that were the primary areas of focus.

Through a series of changes that were adopted to improve the efficiency of each step in the process, Unilever succeeded in reducing its total consumption of steam from 13 MT/hr to 10 MT/hr, and improved its specific energy usage from 4.4 to 3.3 GJ/ton of production, between 2004 and 2008.

Going a step further

A step further Not satisfied with these incremental improvements, we also evaluated several alternatives to fossil fuels, and in March 2009 Unilever Sri Lanka commissioned a biomass boiler which is fuelled by indigenous renewable energy resources, to replace its existing boilers fuelled by furnace oil. This represented a quantum leap in our quest for cleaner and greener energy. The switch from fossil fuel to carbon neutral fuel means an effective reduction in our carbon dioxide emissions of 14,000 tons a year (a reduction of 80%), in addition to bringing a host of other green benefits.