• Fonterra has a diverse range of milk collection initiatives focused on reducing the kilometres travelled by our milk tankers.
• This includes investing in more fuel and emissions efficient tankers and moving milk transport from road to rail.

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Fonterra collects milk from up to 10,500 farms each day, transporting milk to more than 20 production facilities around the country. In order to optimise this complex process Fonterra has fitted each tanker with a GPS locating device. Our new 'Genesis' tanker dispatch system then matches this information with records which predict the volume supplied by each farm. Genesis is then able to direct each tanker on the most efficient route. Switching to this high-tech system has saved Fonterra 3c per kilogram of milk solids collected. It has also significantly improved the level of on-time milk collection – something which is just as important to our farmers.

Fonterra is also switching milk collection to rail for more remote regions. Sending milk by rail from Dannevirke to our Whareroa site in Taranaki, for example, has reduced the transport component of the carbon footprint of each litre of milk on that route by 35 per cent. In cases where milk cannot be railed, such as for collection from Marlborough in the South Island, milk is concentrated before transport to a plant. This has resulted in over 3,000 less tanker movements per year.

On top of these improvements, Fonterra has just invested $27 million on tanker upgrades, shifting to highly fuel efficient vehicles with emission control systems. They will use 30% less fuel and have 35% fewer emissions than our old fleet.

This includes using a urea-based additive called GoClear to help cut emissions from our fleet of milk tankers. GoClear reacts with diesel exhaust gases and converts nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, into water vapour and nitrogen (which are harmless). This reduces the nitrous oxide emissions from diesel transport by between 70 and 90 per cent.