Water Stewardship

Water is an important resource for us, as it is used extensively in our products as well as in operational processes. Through our climate change risk assessment, F&N has identified key sites in Thailand and Malaysia with medium exposure to water-stress – where demand of clean water exceeds the availability. With climate change expected to intensify the severity of flooding and water-stress in the near future, we are committed to responsible water stewardship by managing our water use to safeguard the availability of clean water for the local communities, in the markets we operate.

Guided by the F&N Environmental, Safety and Health Policy and the principles of a circular economy, we develop initiatives to increase water security and reduce our water consumption by identifying and addressing water-related risks and opportunities, and closely collaborate with relevant stakeholders to create shared value projects.

To reduce risk towards our water supply, we have utilised a range of water assessment and action policies that are deployed to all our facilities.

• Water stewardship and its associated risks are regularly monitored as part of all F&N operations enterprise risk management (ERM).
• The sustainability team utilises tools such as the WRI Aqueduct and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Water Risk Filter.
• There is an established system within all F&N operations for systematic daily and monthly tracking and monitoring of water consumption and effluents quality.

To reduce our water consumption, we have undertaken the following initiatives:

• Rojana plant – since January 2020, we have used liquid sugar in the production of sweetened beverage creamer products saving about 132m³ of water a day. We also installed a clarified pond system to treat 120m³ of water a day for reuse.
• Pulau Indah plant – About 800 m³ of wastewater is reused in the cooling tower a day.
• Shah Alam plant – Wastewater from the Aseptic Cold-filling PET Line, Sugar Dissolving Line and Canning Line is treated via reverse osmosis and reused as cooling water, reducing water usage by 115,000 m³ per year.
• Kota Kinabalu plant – By optimising the time during treatment and rinsing process of activated carbon filter, the daily water usage at the wastewater treatment plant is reduced by half, with water savings of over 1,200m³.

As our major sites are certified with environmental management (ISO14001), our employees participate in annual sustainability awareness training (including energy and water) to enhance their knowledge on production efficiency, focusing on reduction of energy and water. During its annual Excel as One Convention, our Thai team is encouraged to generate ideas that can help in improving the water efficiency of respective sites.

In addition, we are educating our dairy farmers about water conservation and the potential of re-using water for cleaning and feed. We are also partnering our sugar manufacturers and chemical suppliers to find effective water optimisation solutions.

None of our sites in Thailand and Malaysia are exposed to extremely high water stress, according to our climate change risk assessment.