Water and energy consumption reduced by more than 1/3

Fishing and manufacturing in general are high resource consuming activities in terms of fuel, energy and water. By reducing our consumption at Royal Greenland, we can reduce the strain on the environment and, at the same time, the efficient use of resources can reduce our costs. A win-win situation – especially when operating in the pristine, yet fragile Arctic environment.

Resource reducing measures have been focused in our Greenlandic production and over a period of 4 years, we have succeeded in reducing water consumption at our Greenlandic factories by 48% and energy by 38%.

This significant reduction has largely happened through very small adjustments and optimizations, but awareness of behavior also played a large part. Malik Hegelund Olsen, Junior Director of Greenlandic Land-based Production explains: "We started this process a few years back, when we began registering our facilities' consumption of water, electricity and diesel per ton of produced goods. This made everyone very aware of their consumption habits and how they dispose over the available resources." At the same time, a number of resource conserving measures with committed saving goals were set in cooperation between the factory managers and technical departments. Hegelund Olsen continues: "The surveillance of our consumption has now been structured and everyone reports to our central SAP system, so that we are at all times aware of how much we are consuming. The whole project is really the old story of little strokes fell great oaks" In addition to tracking of consumption, technical departments have made consumption conscious decisions when replacing old equipment with new, e.g. when Royal Greenland's largest prawn facility in Ilulissat was refurbished in 2009/10.

Worldwide initiatives

The good results from production in Greenland have sparked projects elsewhere in the organisation. Closer monitoring of consumption is also taking place at Royal Greenland locations in Poland, Germany and Denmark. Royal Greenland's trawler division is continuously experimenting with new types of fishing equipment reducing fuel consumption. In addition, LED lighting has been installed in Royal Greenland's newly refurbished unit in Sisimiut following a trial period partly funded by the Government of Greenland. The expected saving is 74% compared to traditional lighting and also, analyses have shown that employees appreciate the new lighting, as it has less flicker. Across the line, initiatives are expected to yield significant savings in the future.