Fonterra’s commitment to the environment continues with ‘wastewater community’

File photo / Mark Mitchell

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Water and the environment are top priorities at Fonterra, with the co-op investing around $600 million in improvements over the next eight years.

Reducing water use and improving wastewater at the co-op’s manufacturing sites is a key part of Fonterra’s long-term strategy as well.

The goal was to make these improvements by taking a leading industry approach, Ian Goldschmidt, GM Water and Environment at Fonterra said.

“As a result, we’ve just invested $51 million into improving wastewater processing and quality at our Te Awamutu site in the Waikato,” he told The Country Sport Breakfast’s, Brian Kelly.

Construction on the project began last year and the co-op had already seen the benefits, Goldschmidt said.

“Stage one of that construction has just been completed and we’ve got some amazing environmental performance out of that site, leading to improved water quality.”

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The upgrade at Te Awamutu is also one of the first wastewater projects run by a newly established “wastewater community”.

The term “wastewater community” referred to a partnership made up of key industry partners including PDP, Babbage, Beca, Vertex Engineers, Aurecon, Tetra Pak, Fulton Hogan and TEG, Goldschmidt explained.

“We realised that we needed to do things slightly different because of the large amount of spend that we had, and we know that throughout New Zealand, our construction partners and staffing is tight.

“So we’ve developed a cross-industry partnership, bringing together well-respected groups of subject-matter experts.”

Over the next 10 years, the partnership will work together to share knowledge and expertise, to make improvements on subsequent projects.

“This ... ultimately helps the co-operative deliver on its environmental promises, by improving our existing wastewater management and performance, and learning as each project changes over time.”

Fonterra’s Te Awamutu site is no stranger to innovation in sustainability, as this is the second major project undertaken in recent years.

“Earlier this year the site completed its first season running on wood pellets rather than coal, so a significant upgrade there moving towards improving our carbon targets.”

This helped the co-op reduce its carbon emissions by more than 11 per cent last year, and there were more innovative projects on the way, Goldschmidt said.

“So, exciting times at Fonterra.”