Pie Society

Foundation Member | Tracking Since September 2022

Pie Society Sustainability Actions

Our position on global warming

With all of the debate and statistics thrown around in the media, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. At Pie Society, we’ve simply acknowledged that humankind has most likely had a negative impact on the environment. You don’t need to be a scientist to see this. Having been around for over 100 years, we also have a relatively unique business perspective on the importance of what the future holds for us and our families. We’ve simply decided that it’s our job to do what we can to ensure our families inherit a world that is in better shape than if we’d done nothing.

Keep the planet clean, it's not Uranus

It doesn't take a rocket genius to see humankind is making a mess of the Earth and we want to be part of the solution. We've built a world-class award winning sustainable baking facility where we use the sun, rainwater and recaptured heat to help make our pies. We've planted forests, pimped our trucks and harvested the sun and this has made significant reductions in our overall environmental impact. We've worked hard and we're proud of our achievements but we're not kidding anyone, we know we're not perfect and we can and will do more.

What we've done

Our commitment to ourselves is to consider sustainable alternatives for even the smallest of projects, knowing that every little improvement counts. We’re by no means perfect but we’re getting better every day. Below is a list of the many environmental initiatives we’ve engaged in over the last 15 years. Some of them make a big difference and some of them make only a small difference. The important thing is they ALL make a difference. Our planet has been damaged a little bit at a time. It will likely be fixed a little bit at a time. At our main baking facility: - Rain water toilet flushing - Solar heated hot water for staff amenities - High efficiency air conditioning and climate control to reduce temperature bleed between baking areas - All hot water for our cake and pie production is preheated using energy recovered from our fridge motors - Heat recovered from freshly baked products (using exhaust fans and the heat taken from cooling tunnels) heats the main production area in winter and minimises heat-bleed into refrigerated areas - Over 100,000 litres of rainwater tanks plumbed for irrigation and truck washing - Victoria’s first Diesel Hybrid truck launched with Sustainability Victoria - Optimised route planning incorporating deliveries outside of peak hour traffic to reduce fuel consumption. - Wind deflectors fitted to all trucks to reduce drag and the associated fuel costs - Bulk raw material handling equipment eliminates half of our requirements for land fill - Over 95% of all waste is channelled back into recycling streams including but not limited to: plastic, tin, wood and food. Non-meat food waste either goes to farmers who use it for animal stock feed or is turned into fertilizer or biofuel. - We’ve hosted hundreds of bakery tours for students and professionals to help inspire further sustainable thinking in business

We planted a forest!

In 2007 we started planting a forest with our offset partners Greenfleet. Our forests now include over 40,000 trees and while they’re doing a great job of turning CO2 into oxygen, they’re also helping to support our natural Australian fauna and reducing soil erosion.

Formal recognition of our work

- Our products are crafted in our state of the art bakery. In 2009 we were awarded our Banksia Award for excellence in business sustainability. The Banksia Awards are the pre-eminent business sustainability awards in Australia. - Overall winner of the Origin Gold Banksia Award for excellence in sustainability - NAB Agribusiness Award for Environment and Energy Management - Best Green Business Award at the national My Business Awards - Induction into the Manufacturing Hall of Fame - Inclusion as a case study in numerous university books and study programs - Inclusion in workplace sustainability study programs

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