Wednesday, 25 January 2023 12:55

Co-op's global green strategy

Written by  Staff Reporters
Fonterra has kicked off its spring vegetation project, planting 20,000 native plants and trees across four hectares to form a riparian zone around its Darnum plant in Victoria. Fonterra has kicked off its spring vegetation project, planting 20,000 native plants and trees across four hectares to form a riparian zone around its Darnum plant in Victoria.

Leading in sustainability is central to Fonterra’s strategy, both here and overseas, the co-operative claims.

The co-operative says that’s how it creates long-term value for the business and generations to come.

“We’re making sustainable improvements right across our business, including how we care for the ecosystems surrounding our manufacturing sites,” it says.

These improvements are not limited to New Zealand. In Gippsland, Victoria, Fonterra’s Darnum site is located on a 280-hectare property, of which only around 6% is used for manufacturing.

It’s here that the co-op kicked off its spring vegetation project, planting 20,000 native plants and trees across four hectares to form a riparian zone.

Paul Winfield, Fonterra’s environmental manager at Darnum, says that re-vegetation projects like these play an important part in protecting and nurturing the ecosystems surrounding its site.

“We want to ensure that we’re producing dairy nutrition in a way that cares for the environment, and part of this is caring for the land around us.

“To make this happen, we’ve partnered with Habitat Creations, a local family-owned company that specialises in conservation, land management and native plant supply via its Wholesale Nursery.

“While the high volume of rainfall we’ve had over the past couple of months delayed the start, it’s great to finally break ground and get the project underway,” says Winfield.

Using plants grown from local provenance seeds, Habitat Creations – along with some people from our site – took on the task to plant out the riparian area.

Michael Shore, general manager at Habitat Creations, says that planting a diverse mix of tall canopy trees and understory species complements the existing native plants already on site.

“These plants and trees will help absorb nutrient run-off and prevent it from getting into the waterway, and will also have significant advantages for local biodiversity – creating a habitat, refuge, and a corridor for wildlife movement to the neighbouring wetlands.

“When fully planted, this area will also have the potential to sequester significant amounts of carbon which will help reduce levels of CO2 – we estimate up to forty tonnes every year over a 25-year period,” says Shore.

This spring vegetation project is just one of many environmental initiatives taking place at Fonterra’s Darnum site.

The co-op has just started introducing solar energy to sites by commissioning a 66kw solar system on the administration building.

More like this

Misguided campaign

OPINION: Last week, Greenpeace lit up Fonterra's Auckland headquarters with 'messages from the common people' - that the sector is polluting the environment.

Aussie farmers get A$8.60/kgMS as opening milk price

Australian dairy farmers supplying Fonterra are getting an opening weighted average milk price of A$8.60/kgMS for the new season or around NZ$9.26/kgMS -  NZ74c less than New Zealand suppliers, based on the current exchange rate.

Featured

Brendan Attrill scoops national award for sustainable farming

Brendan Attrill of Caiseal Trust in Taranaki has been announced as the 2025 National Ambassador for Sustainable Farming and Growing and recipient of the Gordon Stephenson Trophy at the National Sustainability Showcase at in Wellington this evening.

National

Machinery & Products

Farming smarter with technology

The National Fieldays is an annual fixture in the farming calendar: it draws in thousands of farmers, contractors, and industry…

RainWave set to cause a splash

Traditional spreading via tankers or umbilical systems have typically discharged effluent onto splash-plates, resulting in small droplet sizes, which in…

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Misguided campaign

OPINION: Last week, Greenpeace lit up Fonterra's Auckland headquarters with 'messages from the common people' - that the sector is…

Fieldays goes urban

OPINION: Once upon a time the Fieldays were for real farmers, salt of the earth people who thrived on hard…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter