Certain of our agricultural operations have adopted “green cane harvesting”, where practical, which
decreases agricultural emissions caused by the burning of sugar cane prior to harvesting. During “green
cane harvesting”, green biomass is stripped off the cane, either mechanically or by hand, as an
alternative to the traditional practice of burning. The trash removed from the cane is either left infield to
render back into the soil, potentially improving soil moisture retention, nutrient levels and carbon
sequestration, or used as a renewable boiler fuel. Green cane harvesting operations are currently being
undertaken at Illovo’s Malawi, Swaziland and South African operations.
We continue to support various projects in our global climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy:
We are presently engaged in an energy optimisation project at Sezela to reduce its coal consumption
by an estimated 12 000 tons per annum and reduce its imported electricity by 21 GWh. This will
reduce Scope 1 emissions by approximately 29 600 tCO
2
e and Scope 2 emissions by approximately
19 700 tCO
2
e;
We are pursuing energy opportunities at Ubombo which will have the impact of reducing the factory’s
reliance on supplementary fuel, particularly coal and woodchips.
Scope 1 + Scope 2 emissions in tCO
2
e
tCO
2
e
2014/15
2013/14
2012/13
Scope 1 (Energy)
240 977
250 432
247 943
Scope 1 (Other)*
136 819
142 983
42 702
Scope 2
120 029
122 439
259 857
Total
497 825
515 854
550 501
Note: Issues impacting on data integrity include fuel measurement which may be imprecise. Fuel delivery data is
based primarily on delivery or purchasing records and not fuel meters. Boiler efficiency was not considered when
determining emissions from fuel combustion.
* In 2013/14 Illovo’s Scope 1 emissions reporting was expanded to include waste and agricultural emissions.
In 2014/15, the group produced 497 825 tCO
2
e (Scope 1 and 2) GHG emissions at an intensity ratio of
0.283 tCO
2
e per ton of sugar produced. This represents an increase in the intensity ratio from
0.282 tCO
2
e per ton of sugar produced which was achieved in the previous year. This increase is
primarily due to a reduced cane crop in South Africa during the reporting period which has necessitated
the use of a greater proportion of supplementary fuel per ton of sugar produced.
Case Study
Noodsberg Energy Efficiency and GHG improvement project
Three energy initiatives to reduce GHG emissions were implemented at the Noodsberg sugar mill
during the reporting year. These included the upgrade of a boiler from an Eisner furnace to a dump
grate, the implementation of a dedicated woodchip feed to two boilers and the implementation of a
raw sugar vapour melter in the back-end refinery. These projects were implemented to reduce the
quantity of steam used by the factory, to improve the efficiency of fuel conversion to steam and to
enable the factory to use additional quantities of renewable fuel instead of fossil fuel. Unfortunately, a
reduction in the amount of cane crushed by the mill of 9.6% which resulted in a reduction in the
bagasse available for the sugar production and refining process, coupled with the increased refined
sugar output of 3.7%, relative to the 2013/14 financial year, resulted in the impact of these projects
being diluted. Reduced cane throughput results in reduced bagasse fuel production and
consequently additional supplementary fuel was required to produce the increased quantity of refined
sugar. Despite these impacts, the GHG emissions per ton of refined sugar produced by the mill
decreased from 158kg CO
2
e per ton to 150kg CO
2
e per ton.
