The Food Industry Sustainability Strategy (FISS) ‘champions’ group’ on energy and climate change has urged government to provide the food industry with greater financial incentives to develop more energy efficient technologies.
The FISS group on energy called for incentives for investment in technologies such as combined heat and power (CHP) and trigeneration (where heating, cooling and electricity is provided). It also cited technical developments, such as direct-fire oven burner technology and control systems that could deliver up to 15% carbon dioxide reductions, and onsite renewable generation.
While most of these technologies are well understood and offer the food industry significant carbon dioxide reduction potential, “current payback periods are unattractive”, said the group. Financial incentive “needs to be sufficient ensure such projects meet industry norms for returns and payback criteria”. The group called on government to ensure that such new technologies were recognised under the Enhanced Capital Allowance scheme.
Such assistance is necessary to get the buy-in of smaller companies in the sector. It would be essential to get smaller firms on board if the ambitious carbon dioxide reduction targets for the sector were to be met, the group said. The food and drink sector is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases, responsible for 17% of the UK’s emissions.
The group added industry would also welcome government’s help in establishing municipal CHP/trigeneration projects. It also identified another barrier to investment in the often long-winded planning process necessary and called for a “fast track process” for self-generation projects requiring planning permission.
There are doubts about the sector’s ability to achieve a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010 as outlined in the original FISS document published last year. That is because of the uncertainty about baseline data for emissions in 1990 against which the targets were set.
The energy champions group said the target “is achievable if existing technologies and best practice were more widely applied”. However, the group added: “The long-term target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2050 will not be achieved by ‘business as usual’ on energy efficiency.”