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ENVIRONMENT
PITSINEE JITPLEECHEEP
Managing director Parinda Hasdarngkul shows off P&G lines at a briefing yesterday. |
Procter & Gamble (Thailand), one of the country's largest consumer product manufacturers, will invest 450 million baht in its 2008 financial year, with some of the funds used to transform its manufacturing plant to run on natural gas instead of oil. The move will help increase its competitiveness and combat high operating costs as a result of rising oil and raw-material prices, the strong baht and inflation, said managing director Parinda Hasdarngkul.
She said that P&G would pay 12 million baht for a gas pipeline to its 18-billion-baht plant at Wellgrow Industrial Estate in Chachoengsao, which is also a regional hub for skin-care and hair-care products.
After the change of fuel, P&G will save more than 10 million baht a year from two million litres of oil it would otherwise use.
''Accelerating environmental sustainability also helps ensure that our operating costs remain highly competitive so that we can continue to deliver good-value products to consumers and remain a competitive export manufacturing centre in Asia,'' she said.
Apart from the natural gas conversion, the majority of the budget will be spent on restructuring its factory as well as other programmes to make the facility more efficient. The new investment budget, effective from July 1 this year, runs until June 30 next year.
Ms Parinda said the company started exploring the possibility of the conversion two years ago and later received permission from Wellgrow Industrial Estate to be one of the first plants in the estate to convert to natural gas.
P&G is Thailand's largest manufacturer and exporter of hair-care and skin-care products. Its 80-rai plant is also the largest in the Wellgrow Industrial Estate.
The plant now exports more than 85% of its output to almost 20 countries, including the Head & Shoulders hair-care products to Japan. It has also been shipping its Olay skin-care products to India since last year.
''After we fully convert to natural gas, we expect our total greenhouse gas emissions to decline by 30%. Other emissions and waste will also go down, with less air pollution and dust. It will also reduce indirect pollution, since compressed natural gas will be supplied by underground pipes rather than trucks,'' she said.
Ms Parinda said that P&G had also achieved other measurable environmental milestones under its ''Year of Accelerated Environmental Sustainability'' programme. Last month, the company's monthly waste water was reduced by 85% compared to the same month last year. It was now down to fewer than 600 tonnes per month, compared to 4,000 tonnes a month in June 2007.
''Our water use has also been reduced sharply as a result of various conservation and recycling initiatives. In only one year, our monthly water consumption was brought down 38.5% from June 2007 to 80,000 cubic metres in June 2008,'' she said.
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