FrieslandCampina’s call to action for development drive

One of the company’s key strategies is aimed to improve the lives of farmers in the country through effective community assistance

FrieslandCampina’s purpose of “nourishing by nature”, which is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, stands for better nutrition for the world and good living for farmers, now and for generations to come.

The company’s sustainability development initiatives are being guided by its corporate purpose and by its mission for Vietnam to leap forward and reach higher, focusing on three strategic areas.

The first strategic area is education and development of nutrition for Vietnamese children. In Vietnam, the company has carried out the Den Dom Dom Study Promotion Programme and Drink-Move-Be Strong campaign at schools, benefiting millions of children across the country over the last 25 years.

To continue on with the success, the group’s Dutch Lady brand has signed with the Ministry of Education and Training a five-year agreement worth VND55 billion ($2.4 million) of investment. Under the agreement, it will help improve primary school students’ awareness of nutrients and physical health; set up 1,250 booths to disseminate information, and build playgrounds for 65 schools. More than 1.5 million students at 1,500 primary schools will benefit from these activities.

The second strategic area of the company is improving the lives of Vietnamese, especially farmers, through a dairy development programme which is an effective and successful community assistance model.

The programme underlines FrieslandCampina’s position in the vanguard of sustainable development of the milk cow breeding industry for the last 25 years. The company has held more than 12,000 training courses with experts and farmers coming from the Netherlands, taken care of the health of the milk cows for free, managed farms, and provided technical counselling. It has created jobs for more than 7,000 people in rural areas.

Furthermore, FrieslandCampina has also been working with Vietnamese farmers on the Dairy Development Programme, with its provision of more than 3,000 farming households with professional knowledge and skills in breeding milk cows to Dutch quality standards since 1996. Their cow numbers have increased to 35,000.

The final strategic area of FrieslandCampina is protecting the environment and developing sustainably. The group has made efforts to create an effective and sustainable production chain by joining Packaging Recycling Organization Vietnam (PRO Vietnam) and implementing environmental protection activities such as reducing the use of fossil fuels and discharge of CO2 and plastic waste into the environment, saving water, and enhancing waste recycling.

Focus on the future

FrieslandCampina is focusing on future generations with the goal to produce climate-neutral dairy by 2050 and reducing the use of scarce natural resources such as water, raw materials, and fossil fuels.

The company endeavoured to keep greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020 equal or lower in comparison to 2010, and its production facilities in Europe have been fully-powered by green electricity since 2017, representing 90 per cent of the company’s total worldwide electricity consumption. About 28 per cent of all green electricity was purchased from member dairy farmers in 2018.

According to the International Dairy Federation, the dairy industry has one of the smallest carbon footprints per unit of all animal products in the world. The overall contribution of milk production and transportation represents 2.7 per cent of global GHG emissions.

FrieslandCampina Vietnam (FCV) has taken great efforts to create an effective and sustainable production chain through eco-friendly operation and production, and taking packaging into consideration.

Meanwhile, thanks to applying technology in optimisation in manufacturing, this year the company saved around 6 billion kWh of electricity from operation in its factories in the southern province of Binh Duong and the northern province of Ha Nam. FCV also reduced the use of fossil fuels and reduced nearly 4,000 tonnes of discharged CO2.

The company has, in addition, installed an automated monitoring and sampling system which can observe wastewater at any time and automatically takes samples immediately if there is any doubt. This system is linked to the local department of natural resources and environment around the clock. Resulting from these systems, the company has saved 45 billion litres of water.

FCV also made a remarkable effort in enhancing waste recycling so that more than 98 per cent of waste in the plant is reused, targeting 100 per cent no-landfill waste in the next few years.

Thanks to these efforts, FCV was honoured to become an environment protection enterprise in the Binh Duong GreenBook 2020, published once every two years to honour enterprises implementing strong environmental protection activities in the province.

Call to action

As a founder member of PRO Vietnam, FCV has taken action to increase consumer awareness about package, sorting, and recycling, and has made a call for action – to make Vietnam greener, cleaner, and more beautiful through realistic initiatives. FCV’s Friso ready-to-drink brand has pioneered by replacing plastic straws with paper straws, reducing 2.3 tonnes of plastic. The Friso brand is also working with parents to educate children in plastic waste reduction.

In 2021, the group’s plan is to gradually replace plastic materials with eco-friendly equivalents to contribute to PRO Vietnam’s mission and vision. By 2030, it aims to see all packaging materials that members put into the market collected for recycling, and wants to initiate meaningful communication and education campaigns.

“With the new corporate purpose of ‘For Vietnam to leap forward and reach higher’, we would like to reconfirm our commitment and aspirations to contribute more to the socioeconomic development of Vietnam,” said FCV managing director Berend van Wel. “Our purpose guides us in all our business, social, and sustainability agendas.”

Besides developing its business to become an outstanding foreign enterprise that makes a large tax contribution to Binh Duong and Ha Nam provinces, FCV also always discharges its social responsibilities to develop society.

In more than two decades of establishment and development, being patient in creating sustainable value and contributing to the improvement of the quality of life of Vietnamese, FrieslandCampina has been honoured with a first-class Labour Medal by the country’s president in 2016 and the HR Asia Best Companies to Work for in Asia award from HR Asia Magazine in 2018, among many more accolades.

In 2020, with the company contributing to fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic and corporate efforts towards business, FCV was selected in the top 10 best food and beverage companies, and also made the Profit500 of 2020 list, announced by Vietnam Report JSC.