Our Planet In Focus: “Horlicks Takes a Green Leap in India”

A spotlight from GSK's 2015 Responsible Business Supplement:

Horlicks is one of our best-known brands. Used as a nutritional supplement in India, it provides essential vitamins and minerals for growing children.

But in 2012, we discovered through lifecycle analysis that Horlicks had the second largest carbon footprint of all our products. One reason for this was that our three Horlicks factories in India – in Nabha, Rajahmundry and Sonepat – were powered by coal.

We are investing £9.6 million in Project Green Leap to reduce carbon emissions and water use at these three Horlicks factories. For example, we continue to increase the amount of waste biomass we buy to replace coal as a fuel in our boilers. We will be constructing a new 1MW combined heat and power plant at Rajahmundry that will also be fuelled with waste biomass.

This plant will improve efficiency by capturing heat from power generation that would otherwise be wasted. At Sonepat, we are installing photovoltaic cells that generate 0.5MW of power from solar energy, and we are investing in efficient LED lighting across all three sites to cut our energy use.

Since the project began in April 2014, we have cut carbon emissions by 14%. We have also installed effluent treatment plants and rainwater harvesting systems that enable water to be reused and disposed of safely, cutting water use by 30% and helping to replenish groundwater and restore local water sources. £9.6m Investment to improve carbon and water management at these three Horlicks factories.

“We identified a huge opportunity and have reduced carbon emissions at Sonepat by more than 5,000 tonnes between 2014 and 2015.” - Satyaprakash Punia, Utilities and Site Energy Manager, Sonepat, India

More information on this topic visit GSK's website, 2015 Annual Report, and 2015 Responsible Business Supplement.