NEWS

Ülker saved TL 16.5 million through its improvement and efficiency efforts in 2018, and it has been growing without increasing its carbon emissions since 2014, as part of its 2024 sustainability goals.

Since day one, Ülker has followed the ‘zero-waste company management’ model in its production, and this year it published its 4th Sustainability Report, explaining its 2018 progress.

Its work on operational excellence helped Ülker fight financial loss, and constantly streamlining its processes enabled its employees and suppliers to produce value-added work with fewer resources, saving TL 16.5 million in 2018. Improvement efforts are expected to save TL 10 million in 2019, making more progress towards the zero-waste goal.

The company recycled 90% of its waste in 2018, and it has already achieved its 2024 goal by reducing water use per unit of production by 30% compared to 2014. This figure is equivalent to the daily water consumption of a city with a population of 3 million.

Aiming to reduce the amount of energy it uses through improvement and efficiency efforts, Ülker saved a total of 14,200 MWh of energy in 2018, equal to the annual electricity consumption of 9,000 households, equivalent to a financial saving of TL 2.4 million.

Evaluating Ülker's 2018 Sustainability Report, Ülker Türkiye, Central Asia, and the Balkans Region President Mete Buyurgan said, "One of our goals is to move our company forward while leading the sustainable transformation of the food industry, so we can leave a livable world to future generations. For this reason, we have operated according to waste-free company principles since our establishment, and we are working to become a leading company in the field of sustainability."

Buyurgan continued:

“We are very happy to approach realizing the sustainability goals we set for 2024, which is also the 80th anniversary of our organization, in areas like the environment, our value chain, innovation, employees, social responsibility, and leadership. In financial terms, we continued our successful performance in 2018, reaching 554,000 tons of sales by volume, TL 5.9 billion in turnover, and TL 779 million in operating profit. We need to develop and grow together with all our stakeholders, touching every one of the indispensable links of our value chain, in a spectrum ranging from the soil to farmers and from employees to customers. We work with different stakeholder groups in sectoral and international initiatives, and we know how important it is to work together systematically. We believe that sustainability efforts will only be successful if both the company and all its employees adopt them. We’re continuing our journey along the road map we made to achieve our goals with contributions from our employees and managers.

Ülker’s Gebze Factory Earns A Green Building Certificate

As the first company in Türkiye to announce a growth strategy without increasing carbon emissions, Buyurgan stated since 2014, total emissions have been kept at the same level, and emphasized that with the sustainability practices implemented at the Gebze Factory, they were the first food producer to get the BREEAM "Green Building Certificate".

With a reminder that in addition to protecting natural resources, they are trying to support Turkish farmers to produce more efficiently, and for their sustainability targets, supply chain policy, and crop purchases, they chose local farmers Buyurgan said:

"For years, we’ve supplied 80% of our wheat from domestic producers, contributing to more than 500,000 families, including transport, harvest, evacuation, and storage workers, cooperatives, associations, and farmers. We are working on wheat and oats with agriculture research institutes affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Wheat is an important raw material for both our country and our company. With the Bahri Dağdaş International Agricultural Research Institute, we conducted improvement studies for the ideal wheat production for biscuits, resulting in the development of a high-yield, drought-resistant wheat type we call "Ali Ağa", which we are working to mainstream. We contract with farmers to meet our annual need of 4,000 tons of oats, and we supported the Trakya Agricultural Research Institute's project to develop an oat variety named Kahraman. Ülker Biscuit also carried out the Sustainable Hazelnut Farming Project together with an international foundation to protect productivity and biodiversity in agricultural fields."

Examples of our 2018 work

• We’ve grown without an increase in carbon emissions since 2014
• Saved a total of 14,200 MWh of energy, equal to the annual electricity consumption of 9,000 households.
• 30% reduction in water use per unit of production since 2014 (This figure is equivalent to the daily water consumption of a city with a population of 3 million)
• 16.5 million TL in savings through improvement and efficiency projects
• BREEAM Green Building Certificate awarded to our Gebze factory
• Waste recycling rate reached 90%
• Won first place in Türkiye at the European Union Environment Awards
• Won third place in the Environment and Sustainability Management category at the ISO Environment Awards
• The best food brand that brings a good life to consumers according to the "Good Life" Research