Sustainable Food and Beverage manufacturing with zenon

As global temperatures rise and environmental concerns intensify, adopting eco-friendly practices becomes crucial. By implementing sustainable manufacturing processes, Food and Beverage companies can significantly reduce their carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), minimize waste, and enhance resource efficiency.

Understanding the industry's role in global warming underscores why immediate action on sustainability is vital. Embracing technologies and practices that lower energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions supports global climate goals and meets rising consumer demand for environmentally responsible products. Investing in sustainable food and beverage manufacturing not only helps in achieving regulatory compliance but also boosts operational efficiency and product quality. Prioritizing sustainability is more than a trend – it’s a necessity for a healthier planet and a resilient Food and Beverage industry.

global stance on climat change

A global stance on climate change

Understanding the overall impact industry plays in global warming reveals why addressing sustainability is so important. Because world governments are far behind on their commitments to achieve Net-Zero it falls to companies and individual citizens to take the lead in reducing emissions.

Companies produce three classes of carbon emissions:

These are the emissions that your company produces directly, such as the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by machinery and operations in manufacturing processes, or the emissions from your company's car fleet.
This category includes emissions from the energy you purchase, such as electricity, heat, cooling, or steam, provided it is generated off-site.
This includes all other emissions associated with your company at every level of the value chain, such as the emissions produced by your suppliers or the ones released by your products when customers use or dispose them.

While Scopes 1 and 2 are fairly simple to manage and monitor, the Scope 3 category is so broad that reducing these emissions is one of the biggest challenges companies face in working toward Net-Zero. Regardless, finding ways to combat these emissions will be an important step toward sustainable food and beverage manufacturing.

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Global climate initiatives and the European Green Deal

Around the world, various regions and countries have launched significant climate and sustainability initiatives tailored to their unique environmental and economic challenges.

In the European Union, the European Green Deal stands out as a comprehensive policy framework aimed at achieving climate neutrality by 2050, with ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. This initiative includes a wide range of components, such as the Circular Economy Action Plan and the Just Transition Mechanism, which are designed to promote sustainable growth and ensure that no one is left behind in the transition.

In the United States, the Green New Deal has shaped national discussions around addressing climate change and economic inequality. It envisions a future with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), millions of new green jobs, and infrastructure upgrades to support a sustainable economy.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Green Development has incorporated green development principles to promote sustainable infrastructure and energy projects across participating countries, with a goal to reduce carbon intensity and enhance environmental protection.

India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), launched in 2008, aims to reduce emissions intensity, increase renewable energy capacity, and promote sustainable agriculture.

Africa’s Agenda 2063 by the African Union focuses on sustainable development, climate resilience, and renewable energy access across the continent.

Latin America and the Caribbean have embraced the Escazú Agreement, a regional pact focused on environmental justice, public participation, and access to environmental information.

Japan's Green Growth Strategy aims for carbon neutrality by 2050 through innovation in sectors like energy and transportation.

These initiatives, though diverse in their approaches, collectively represent global efforts to combat climate change and promote sustainable development.

impact of F&B

The current impact of Food and Beverage manufacturing on the climate crisis

The global food supply chain contributes on a high level to the GHG emissions. The Food and Beverage sector is particularly challenging due to its complex and diverse supply chains, which often span multiple countries and involve numerous intermediaries. Processing and packaging stages add to the carbon footprint, with energy-intensive operations and materials contributing further to overall emissions. Transportation and distribution, which involve long supply chains, also add substantial greenhouse gases (GHG) as goods are moved across the globe.

One of the most pressing challenges for the Food and Beverage industry is managing Scope 3 emissions, which include all indirect emissions from the value chain. These emissions are difficult to measure and manage due to the often non-transparent nature of global supply chains. Scope 3 emissions include those from raw material extraction, production processes, transportation, and the eventual disposal of products. Addressing these challenges requires advanced solutions. Digital tools that integrate each point in the value chain can provide the necessary visibility into these previously obscure entities. Technologies such as IoT sensors, and advanced data analytics can help track emissions more precisely and transparently. By enhancing visibility and enabling better data collection, these tools can help identify key areas for improvement, optimize processes, and reduce overall emissions.

Furthermore, adopting sustainable practices and technologies is essential for mitigating the environmental impact and improving the environmental sustainability of the Food and Beverage industry. This includes shifting to energy-efficient technologies, improving waste management practices, and sourcing raw materials from sustainable sources. Companies can also invest in innovative packaging solutions that reduce environmental impact and support circular economy principles. This aligns with the public commitment to Science Based Targets (SBTi) for Scopes 1, 2, and 3. Genuine industry transformation occurs when individuals take ownership of their personal transformation journey. In conclusion, while the Food and Beverage sector faces significant challenges in reducing its carbon footprint, the use of advanced digital tools and sustainable practices offers a path forward. By integrating these tools across the value chain and focusing on sustainability, the industry can make meaningful progress towards reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and contributing to global climate goals.

Charting a path toward a sustainable future

Reaching Net-Zero by 2050 is an ambitious goal. Companies and governments will need to rapidly deploy all available clean technologies as well as accelerating development of new ones. Implementing the right software tools will help simplify this process.

software

Strengthen your sustainability initiative with software

Smart and sustainable solutions

Implementing a data management and sustainability software solution like zenon enables companies to boost productivity and scale operations while reducing emissions.

Centralizing all industrial process and facility data in zenon and storing it in zenon Historian allows for easier access and organization throughout your company, so everyone can get the data they need to make confident decisions.
zenon allows you to standardize collected data and besides securing and visualizing the data, zenon can also provide it to other systems. It connects for example directly with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to rapidly integrate all required data.
Monitoring all your processes with zenon will help you identify potentials for optimization. Furthermore, zenon’s capabilities in the area of Process Automation allows you to run your processes in the most efficient way.
zenon's extensive library of pre-designed visualization features, as well as the freedom to create visualization objects completely according to your needs, allows your engineers to create rich dashboards and process overviews for easier communication with key stakeholders.

Reducing energy consumption by monitoring processes and avoiding load peaks:

Adding zenon as EDMS synergizes cost optimization and sustainable production models so you can actively reduce your environmental impact across all facilities.

Net-Zero goal

Utilizing zenon toward a Net-Zero goal

Implementing advanced digital data management and analytics tools is critical for managing all classes of emissions across every industry. That's where zenon comes in. By connecting decision-makers to data from your factory floor and other areas of your company, zenon unlocks key efficiency insights that were previously unavailable. We set the focus on empowering industries in manufacturing and energy suppliers to enable them to get in action mode:

Sustainability Solutions with zenon

Digital transformation is a key component of the transition to Net-Zero food and beverage production, and a software like zenon is more than an important addition to any environmentally-minded company's tech stack.

But zenon is also much more than a sustainability software. Our software Platform drives a strong return on investment (ROI) for our customers in every agile iteration of integration by increasing flexibility and reducing total cost with improved consistency in implementation.

Learn how zenon maximizes the impact of your sustainable transformation journey.

Strategies for sustainable manufacturing in Food & Beverage

zenon streamlines engineering and manufacturing automation by increasing operational efficiency on both your plant floor and in your back office. Create an integrated environment that includes everything from data recording and machine operation to business intelligence applications for complete transparency. With visibility into all plant processes, you'll reduce resource usage, generate real-time insights into emissions and support better decision-making.

Overall control and effectiveness made easy

zenon's advanced reporting and analytics capabilities help companies to boost process efficiency and reduce waste by revealing key areas for improvement. With greater visibility into operations, you have the information needed to address production issues with sustainable solutions. The goal is to run your manufacturing processes as effective as possible.

Be empowered to manage any energy flow

Greater transparency into your emissions makes it easier to manage all aspects of an energy flow from beginning to end. As part of a well-designed EDMS, zenon allows you to identify which points need the most improvement and what actions you can take to manage them. With zenon’s capabilities in energy management, you can directly take these actions.

Prepare for disruptions and innovations

Our world is changing faster than ever these days, so it's important getting ready to adapt to new ideas and innovations.

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Sustainability Solutions: As an open, modular, and interdisciplinary software platform, zenon serves as a key transformative technology for tackling diverse challenges. It becomes your platform for operational and industrial sustainability solutions.

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Agile initiative implementation: Increasing your company's agility helps continuously increase efficiency in engineering and development, so you can quickly adapt to obstacles like scarcity of skilled workers, supply chain disruptions and more.

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Process Automation: Automated technologies allow for modular production and flexible recipes, so your plant can rapidly adjust production to meet evolving customer and industry demands without wasting resources.

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Plant information management: zenon transforms your plant floor data into valuable business intelligence by giving you actionable insights into your resource and energy usage for more sustainable decision-making.

Focus on Net-Zero with zenon

At COPA-DATA, we are committed to supporting sustainability in manufacturing by providing you with the insight and tools you need to effectively manage your energy consumption and emissions data. Our solutions enable you to actively reduce your carbon footprint.

Food & Beverage Industry Management

our customers

Our Customers

For more than three decades, we have been supporting companies in their automation, digitization and sustainability projects. Our customers include global companies such as BMW, Ford, Toyota, Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, ABB, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Microsoft and many others (5,000+ worldwide). Even the most valuable company in the world – Saudi Aramco – is already using zenon for more than ten years.