Dairy enterprises take actions to build circular economy

As one of the leading companies in Vietnam, Vinamilk is highly aware of its influence to the community and the sustainable development of the society. This is reason why Vinamilk has started to take responsibility for the environment since its early development, with one of its steps is building a waste treatment plant.

Speaking at the Business Sustainable Development Forum, Nguyen Quoc Khanh, executive director of research & development of Vinamilk, said that the company has invested in equipment early, applied modern and environmentally friendly technology, practiced regenerative agriculture.

It has also used renewable energy systems for the purpose of sustainable use, and contributed to conservation limited energy and resources.

For example, biogas waste treatment system was applied in dairy farms, helping turn waste into resources. Specifically, the amount of methane collected from the biogas system will be used to dry grass as food for calves, pasteurize milk for calves, and heat water for farm operations.

Waste is treated to become fertilizer for grasslands, corn, and serves to improve the soil, thereby, helping to save costs on electricity, fertilizer.

In TH Group – other big player in diary market, sustainability is seen as the key to create healthy and self-sustaining corporate ecosystems.

In its sustainability report, Thai Huong, founder of TH Group, stated that: “Confronting the tough challenges and taking the great pride on the journey of “Sustainability” for we all know that ultimately, it is the vital path for long lasting development.”

Sustainability serves as the guiding light for TH operations and businesses towards everlasting prosperity and global recognition. This is acknowledged with six sustainability pillars, including nutrition and health, environment, people, education, community, and animal welfare.

In 2021, TH actively fulfill its social responsibility, and accompanied the government and competent authorities in providing support to Covid-19 fontline workers by contributions and donations amounted to over VND108 billion.

To save production costs, it has been operating a state-of-the-art system of solar power panels on the roofs of the farm cluster, and the system has been connected with the national power grid.

In addition, TH Group began to use straws made from advanced bioplastics in 2019. This environmentally-friendly material is produced from plant materials such as maize, cassava, and sugarcane.

It also kept playing the role of a co-founder in environmental initiatives such as Vietnam Packaging Recycling Organization (PRO Vietnam) and the Vietnam Business for Environment (VB4E).

Established in 2019, PRO Vietnam is an alliance of leading businesses in consuming goods, retailing and packaging which share the common mission by promoting the circular economic model through transforming the processes of collecting and recycling product packages into more accessible and sustainable manner.

TH Group organized to collect and recycle milk cartons at its TH true mart stores in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to spread the green lifestyle. After being collected, the milk cartons will be returned by TH to Tetra Pak – a world-famous group providing packaging products – to be recycled into useful, environmentally friendly and safe products for users.

Two other founding member of PRO Vietnam – FrieslandCampina Vietnam (FCV) và Nutifood, both are key players in dairy market, also apply circular economy model in their business.

In details, FCV, which possesses famous brand names Dutch Lady, Friso, Yomost, recently officially launched its sustainability strategy of “Nourishing a better planet”, in which sustainable development is considered the lodestar in all of its business and production activities.

In order to materialise all set targets, FCV has devised four key pillars for its action programme in Vietnam, including “better nutrition”, “better packaging”, “better planet”, and “better livelihood for the Vietnamese”.

However, in previously, FCV has implemented many programs towards sustainability, such as Dairy Development Programme for nearly three decades of development in Vietnam. It will support farmers through annual training programme with technical support, training, technology transfer and experience sharing.

Through the long-term strategic cooperation programme between the Dutch Lady brand and the Ministry of Education and Training, 1.5 million primary school students will benefit from physical nutrition education and development within five years (2020 – 2025).

NutiFood has plans and has taken actions to reduce plastic waste for the long-term. It will research products that use environmentally-friendly packaging so that the waste disposal process will be shortened.

Furthermore, the company will also invest in production lines that can use recycled materials to minimise the plastic waste discharged into the ocean, which causes environmental pollution.