World Environment Day – A glimpse into our contributions to the planet and people
This Environment Day, we approached a few colleagues in Malaysia who have been part of meaningful green initiatives for the business.
With different work portfolios, each of them shares one of their most important works they have been part of and how it contributes to the environment and people.
Keen Yew Yap - Engineering and Capex Project Manager, Susumas Plant
“One of the most important works I have been part of was the solar panels installation project in Susumas back in 2020. The plant had high dependency on grid electricity, leading to elevated energy costs and increased carbon emissions from non-renewable energy sources. So, we installed rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar panels to harness renewable energy directly at the plant. Now, we achieve approximately 17% reduction in our monthly electricity consumption from the grid, contributing significantly to lowering our carbon footprint and contributing to long-term cost savings and improved energy resilience for the plant. It feels good to have been part of such an important piece of work that will enable us to reap a long-term advantage both to the environment and business”
Faiza Abdul Bahar - Process Improvement Engineer, Dairymas Plant
“It’s a given that working in a cultured plant requires higher water consumption. That’s why one of the waters saving efforts that stood out for me was improving the way we clean equipment after making Culture Milk Drink (CMD). After each production run, the CMD plant has 17 different cleaning routes to be cleaned. We focused on the final rinse step and looked for ways to reduce the rinse time without affecting cleanliness. Both the Production and Quality team work together to conduct validation studies to optimize the final rinse time without compromising food safety and the quality of our product. By the third validation, we safely reduce the final rinse durations to an average of around 120s per cleaning route. As a result, we now save around 6,000 liters of water per CIP cycle. I feel proud of this achievement and a sense of satisfaction helping minimize water wastage”
Lim Siew Poh – Marketing Director
“In my opinion, there are many ways we can help support sustainability. For us, we support it through fun education like our “trash to treasure” inter-school recycling competition, which was part of our school milk program. We wanted to get the sustainability concept into the young minds and empower them to transform waste into something useful. Over the years running this initiative, we've come across many mind-blowing innovations. One of my favorites was a unique proposal called ‘Pufferfishboat’ – which is a "trash pick-up boat" made of waste polystyrene that could be mobilized to collect waste surfacing on water in drains. This has proven that it’s never too young to inculcate good habits. It only takes the right stimulant and encouragement - that's where we come in to support”
Carolyn Lim – Human Resource Director
“Our contribution to Non-Government Orgaizations (NGOs) like Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia is one way we contribute towards sustainability. We work closely with the Food Safety Quality, Operations, Marketing and Sales team when we have excesses which are still safe to be consumed. We contribute them to underprivileged families or what we call B40 here. It's a two-pronged effort where we support communities in need, and at the same time reducing waste to the landfill”
"The greatest threat to our planet is the believe that someone else will save it"
Happy World Environment Day.