P&G chooses greener transport

Muizen (Mechelen), Procter & Gamble, one of the world’s largest producers of consumer goods, will make use of railway transport for the transport of its finished products in Belgium. This measure reduces road traffic with 5000 truck transports per year and CO2-emissions with 350 tons*. P&G sees intermodal transport as the future to foresee transport, not only in a cost-efficient but qualitative way, but also in an innovative and sustainable way.

The intermodal project of P&G was officially presented in the terminal of IFB in Muizen in the presence of the Flemish minister Hilde Crevits. P&G is always looking for innovative ways to limit the impact of its products and activities on the environment to a minimum. Within the framework of its strategy of sustainability, the company has set a goal to reduce its CO2-emission, energy and water use, and produced waste (per production-unit) by 2012 with another 10%, in order to achieve a total reduction of 40% in a period of 10 years.

Regarding sustainability, P&G works with the concept of an intermodal transport chain. Within this concept, they will make use of rail- and waterways. The first and last miles of the intermodal transport chain are usually done by road transport. For this specific project containers with in Belgium produced goods (Pringles, Ariel and Duracell) are transported by train from Muizen to Zeebrugge and further on transported to the UK. By making use of the railway connection Muizen-Zeebrugge congestion and road traffic is reduced by 5000 truck transports per year, over a distance of 120 kilometers.

Keith Harrison, P&G Global Product Supply Officer, says: “Our products are transported over more than 200 million kilometers in Western Europe in a year. More than 90% of our transports are done by road transport. On a European level, this project fits perfectly our goal to transport our products more frequently by rail in Western Europe: from 10% to 30% by 2015.”

With this vision, P&G is one of the pioneers in the consumer goods industry to fit intermodality on a large scale in its distribution network. The realization of it can mean a yearly reduction of almost 67.500 tons CO2.

Hilde Crevits, Flemish minister of Public Works, Energy, Environment and Nature, attended the official opening of the rail connection today, praises the initiative of P&G. “By transporting its products by train, P&G will contribute to the reduction of the CO2-emissions. This is very valuable, because of the huge logistic and environmental challenges the transport sector faces worldwide. In Flanders we need more of these projects”.

The minister-president Kris Peeters agrees: “The project of Procter & Gamble shows that companies put the improvement of the logistic processes upfront and that they dare to choose a multimodal approach. This fits the philosophy of Flanders Logistics, in which we want to secure the excellent position of Flanders in the field of logistics, with special attention for sustainable development.”

* Calculated following the method of www.ecotransit.org

About Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble is a global producer of consumer goods with a portfolio of more than 300 qualitative brand among which Pampers®, Ariel®, Always®, Alldays®, Tampax®, Pantene®, Herbal Essences®, Pringles®, Dash®, Dreft®, Lenor®, Mr Proper®, Swiffer®, Iams®, Oral-B®, Actonel®, Duracell®, Olaz®, Head & Shoulders®, Wella®, Gillette® en Braun®. Worldwide, consumers choose P&G-brands almost 3 billion times a day. P&G employs almost 138.000 people in over 80 countries. In Belgium P&G has sites in Strombeek-Bever, Mechelen and Aarschot.

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Images of the opening can be found on https://www.porternovelli.be/client/pg/public

For more information, please contact:

Inge Debacker - Procter & Gamble Belgium - Tel: 02 456 28 07 e-mail: debacker.ij@pg.com