“Maintaining a focus on energy efficiency is the way we work, and not an isolated event,” says Giorgio Ronca, Industrial Manager. “One of the important activities last year was an upgrade of our energy management system. Now we have enough data resolution to identify even a small improvement opportunity in our plant and make decisions about energy projects based on a detailed analysis of energy data. In addition, there are two other ‘magic words’ that have allowed us to obtain these results, involvement and synergy. Involvement of all production operators, and synergy with the other departments that are part of the value chain. This will be fundamental for future continuous improvement of our energy performance.”

Skretting Italy observed a 2.5% increase in waste per tonne. At the same time, the team introduced post-industrial (PI) recycled material in their polyethylene (PE) bags. The bags are made from three layers of PE with the recycled content in the middle between the two layers of virgin PE. This was a challenging project because many aspects had to be considered to guarantee feed safety

The most important was to ensure that the source of the PI material is traceable and not contaminated. Skretting Italy ensured compliance with the regulations and carried out a risk assessment that has been approved by the veterinary control authorities. We are proud to share that around 50% of a bag is made from recycled PE without increasing the thickness of the bag. Skretting Italy also uses buckets made from 75% polypropylene post consumption recycled content.

“With around 105 tonnes of bags and over 3 000 buckets purchased in 2022, Skretting Italy recycled over 50 tonnes of plastic,” says Adamo Caldori, Purchasing Responsible at Skretting Italy. “We are fully committed to the Nutreco Sustainability Roadmap 2025, and improving the circularity of plastic material is an important step in this journey.”

“Skretting has made it easy to understand the climate impact the company has had throughout its value chain over the past three years, while at the same time they can show impressive results by cutting their emissions in line with the requirements of the Paris Agreement” says John Wikström, head of strategy and sustainability at PwC Bergen.

Skretting has a long tradition in sustainability reporting, particularly in Norway, and Skretting Norway has set clear and long-term goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

That is why Skretting Norway has chosen to call their sustainability work ACT! There are currently 12 actions customers can select to start working on — together with Skretting. In short it has actions to reduce the green house gas emissions in the supply chain and to select raw materials that are more footprint friendly, plus ways to move more towards a circular economy. And finally it is about social responsibility and governance.

“When we started the work to find out concrete actions that we in Skretting could implement for sustainability a few years ago, we first thought that we could launch a special green feed to the market. We have abandoned this mindset, because we believe that sustainability work requires collaboration and that different companies will emphasise different focus areas and have different capacity for action. In addition, it will probably turn out that some of the measures we think are good today may not be that effective, while there will be other excellent initiatives that we have not seen the contours of yet,” says Leif Kjetil Skjæveland sustainability and public relations manager in Skretting Norway.

The current 12 actions

The following are the initial suggestions for ESG activities that Skretting Norway and their customers will carry out together:

1. Reduce Land Use Change (LUC) for the raw materials we source
2. CO₂ reduction by working close with selected suppliers in our value chain
3. Help develop more novel ingredients so we can have a larger and more versatile ingredient basket
4. Include raw materials with a lower footprint or from a circular economy
5. Social programs to improve the situation where we source our ingredients
6. Lower emissions and less use of phosphorus and zinc by including phytase in the feed
7. Sludge handling to utilise this valuable resource
8. Health monitoring as a tool to prevent that a fish dies unnecessarily as nothing is as wasted as a dead fish
9. Sustainability reporting to ensure that our and the customer’s governance is transparent and to measure that we move in the right direction
10. Certificate of origin for renewable electricity
11. Transport with lower CO₂ with hydrogen powered trucks for feed transport (land-based)
12. Carbon offsets with local tree planting as an additional solution to lowering scope 1, 2 and 3

The purpose of the Clean Production Agreement coordinated by SalmonChile is to move ahead with real and tangible solutions to reduce the environmental gaps in salmon farming in Chile, specifically regarding carbon footprint and the generation of solid waste. The agreement is in line with RoadMap 2025, as an important part of the value chain of the national aquaculture industry, responsible for feeding a growing population.

Skretting Chile adheres to four of the seven goals set forth in the APL, with an 87.54% progress in terms of achievable actions as of the date of this report:

• Goal 1: Skretting Chile implements a corporate management with a focus on sustainability.
• Goal 2: Skretting Chile sets a mitigation goal for its GHG emissions to be achieved at the end of its implementation.
• Goal 3: Skretting Chile has a waste implementation system and guidelines for adding circular economy into its operations.
• Goal 5: Skretting Chile designs new circular business models as a supplier to the salmon producing companies.

The APL certification ends in the second half of 2023, and Skretting Chile has verified and delivered evidence that ensures compliance of the goals with committed actions, designating the right employees to work on the concrete development of strategic plans.