Renewable energy
To support SDG 13 of taking urgent action to combat climate change, Coloplast is purchasing renewable energy certificates for electricity consumption at all production sites
We continue to advance our efforts on renewable energy. Our ambition is to have all sites running on 100% renewable energy by 2025. Our approach is to procure electricity from renewable sources and phase out the use of natural gas – primarily through electrification but also by other means such as utilisation of district heating run on renewables where feasible.
During 2022/23, we continued to phase out the use of natural gas at our production sites. An additional electric heat pump was installed at Nyírbátor, Hungary, and a comprehensive electrification and energy saving option study was completed at our facility in France. By the end of 2023, our facilities in Denmark will be heated through district heating generated by incineration of 80% FSC©-certified biomass and 20% household waste.
Electricity accounts for more than 75% of the total energy consumption in our production. Wherever our electricity is not already from renewable sources, Coloplast purchases renewable energy certificates (RECs) to cover our consumption, effectively reducing our emissions by 32,200 tonnes CO2e in 2022/23 compared to conventionally generated electricity. Our ambition is to replace RECs with Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to ensure additionality in the regions where we produce through the construction of new renewable power generation capacity at our request.
Coloplast signed its first PPA in 2021/22 linked to a newly constructed solar park in Denmark. With its commissioning in 2023, the PPA will cover 100% of our electricity consumption in Denmark from 2023/24 onwards. This year we have also pursued further feasible options for PPAs in other markets, and this work will continue in 2023/24.
Improving energy efficiency
It is Coloplast’s ambition to continuously reduce energy consumption per product. Combined with the use of renewable energy, this is an efficient way to reduce climate impacts from our production. This year, our energy efficiency decreased slightly to 0.13 kWh per product compared to 0.12 last year.