Bühler raises its waste and energy reduction targets at global networking event
A total of 800 influential senior executives from across the food sector have gathered for this year’s Networking Days in Uzwil, Switzerland, with is core goal of enhancing sustainable production.
Confectionery Production was among the invited guests, with the company’s CEO Stefan Scheiber declaring that the business is se to raise its target for reducing waste, energy and water use by 50% over the next six years.
The focus of the two-day event, which included demonstrations of equipment for the confectionery and bakery sectors, has been in addressing the challenge of how it will be possible in 2050 to feed a global population of almost ten billion people sustainably and healthily and how to ensure their mobility.
The event has included a number of keynote speakers including Ian Roberts, Bühler’s chief technology officer (pictured), who outlined the company’s key targets over the next decade, as the business faces a number of key challenges.
“Climate change and the demands of our growing population are huge challenges. At the same time, we live in the best world in history. And never have we had such powerful technologies at our disposal,” explained Stefan Scheiber, CEO of Bühler Group.
He added that the crucial point is that industry, research, and politics must use these new and sustainable technologies to cope with these challenges and that these various players must work together toward this goal. “Our aim is to reduce energy requirements, water consumption, and waste by 50% in our customers’ value chains,” says Scheiber. Another important point for him is a change of perception: “Industry must become part of the solution.”
As the CEO noted, the companies represented at the event are responsible for feeding around four billion people every day and help fulfil their mobility needs.
“The fact that so many manufacturers, scientists, industry partners, and start-ups are coming together here today shows that the industrial community is prepared to bear its responsibility and to become part of the solution,” says Stefan Scheiber, CEO of Bühler Group. Bühler has invited distinguished speakers to the Networking Days, including Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Norwegian prime minister and a decades-long important voice on climate change; Stefan Palzer, Chief Technology Officer of Nestlé; Patrick Dupin, CEO of Saint Gobain Northern Europe, Francois Pienaar, who led South Africa to victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup; Sunny Verghese, co-founder and CEO of Olam International and chair of the World Business Council For Sustainable Development, and John Harthorne, the founder of the start-up accelerator MassChallenge.
