Are you aware of what you don’t know when it comes to energy and your operations?

Are you aware of what you don’t know when it comes to energy and your operations?

By Stacey Newman

All human beings have a stake in achieving sustainable operations and at the heart of eco-responsibility is the question of energy—how do we produce, capture, use and waste energy?

The industry experts I spoke to agree: it’s the incorrect assumptions made about our operations that stand in the way of running sustainable businesses and saving costs in the short and long term. They also say that there is no better time than now to implement strategies to grow your business while shrinking your footprint.

There are several sustainability programs and organizations available to MPO members designed with meat processors/ businesses in mind.

Contact MPO for more information about any of the following programs.

The MPO Energy program ECNG Energy Group is the largest provider of energy management solutions and services in Canada, working across all industries sectors. Some of the largest MPO members are already reaping the rewards of the program, which among other benefits provides access to volume price breaks—allowing ECNG to secure wholesale market pricing on behalf of the entire group and pass on the savings directly to individual members.

Elliott Jones is a business development executive at ECNG. Jones says that while almost everyone wants to cut costs, ECNG looks holistically at all matters related to energy, not just savings on commodity or fixing your gas or electricity price. “ECNG drives costs out of the supply chain, for example, by focusing on strategic procurement strategies and aggregating the volumes of MPO members, to leverage the combined buying power in the market,” says Jones. “We’ve put together this energy program with the intention of being more than just a price point but more as your energy management provider helping members discover rebates, retrofit grants and savings that may have been missed. ECNG will do the leg work and the money goes right into your pocket, not ours.”

Jones is proud of helping everyday operators to save and run energy-efficient businesses based on understanding their operations. He says his ultimate goal is removing the burden of uncertainty around costs. He also wants to demonstrate that ECNG brings a ton of value to the table with creative, proven recommendations for every kind of customer.

Provision Coalition Cher Mereweather is one of Canada’s leaders in food industry sustainability. As founder and CEO of Provision Coalition Inc, Mereweather works directly with food companies to transform their business culture and operations. (Look in this issue for the Provision Coalition business profile!) I’ve spoken to Mereweather about the topic of energy consumption. She outlined 35 key quick wins for reducing energy consumption today, which you can find online at Provision Coalition’s blog. But quick wins are just the beginning of what’s possible. Most fascinating are Mereweather’s insights into one of the biggest barriers to sustainability for food industry businesses—with food operators so focused on the day-to-day—there is little to no measurement of actual efficiencies and operators are leaving big money on the table.

Says Mereweather, customers typically “just want to sell more” which is understandable. But they’re not making the connection that value-driven customers today care about this. What business are you losing, what business aren’t you gaining?

As an example, let’s look at food wastage.

“Actually,” says Mereweather, “you’re losing in energy, water, food processors and manufacturing, all of the energy and GHGs embedded in the raw ingredients, and your labour.”

Mereweather asks the questions others may not: “Why are you diverting? What is the reason? Do you have an unavoidable byproduct, or is there just a major flaw in your process requiring you to unnecessarily divert waste? Mereweather says when you run the numbers, the costs are greater when implementing unnecessary diversion strategies instead of re-assessing your processes. But operators haven’t made that connection.

Says Mereweather: “When it comes to sustainability, most of us in the industry lack self-awareness and we have to redefine success and the ways we measure the cost of our operations.”

The costs are even higher for meat companies

• In 2019, Provision was funded by the Walmart Foundation in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity and

Enviro-Stewards to assess opportunities to prevent food loss + waste at 50 facilities across Canada. • 15 of those 50 were meat processing facilities. • The average food wasted across those 15 sites was equivalent to $259,324 per year, per site (i.e., $3.9 million in losses/year for 15 facilities). • If saved, the environmental impact is equivalent to 9,600 t of greenhouse gas emissions. • If saved, the social impact is equivalent to 5 million meals or 3.75 billion calories.

(Source: Provision Coalition) SAVE ON ENERGY’s program to retrofit lighting DYK? MPO members are eligible businesses for the upgrading of equipment and operations with the help of the Save On Retrofit program. Projects eligible for this program are those that provide maintainable, measurable and verifiable reductions in peak electricity demand and electricity consumption.

Examples of eligible projects include: • Lighting retrofits • Lighting controls • HVAC redesign • Chiller replacement • Variable-speed drive installations

For more information about Save On Energy’s program, please visit saveonenergy.ca/For-Your-Small-Business) For more information anout the MPO Energy Program please contact Derek Boudreau at 519-635-9281.