Dinant Marks Earth Month With Greater Commitment to Sustainability
Honduran Food Producer Cuts Use of Fossil Fuel, Water, Fertilizers
Dinant volunteers plant native trees in Tegucigalpa, Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS, 27 APRIL 2022: Dinant is marking Earth Month by committing to invest more in protecting and enhancing the environment, and ensuring that its operations are as sustainable as possible. Roger Pineda Pinel, Dinant’s Director of Corporate Relations and Sustainability, commented, “Dinant has a strong track record in environmental protection – as our recently-published Sustainability Report demonstrates – but we are constantly searching for ways to improve as our business expands.” Current environmental protection measures include:- Dinant’s high-tech biogas recovery unit at its oil extraction mill in the Aguán uses biomass from the waste of the palm fruit to produce clean energy and steam that is used to power its boilers. From 2020 through the first quarter of 2022, Dinant generated over 60 million KWs of clean energy of which 2.1 million KWs was provided to the National Electric Power Network Grid, helping to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels.
- Dinant protects many hundreds of hectares of tropical rainforest at two Wildlife Conservation Centers in Honduras, and manages breeding, rearing and release programs of endangered indigenous species, including jaguar, tapir, red macaw and green iguana.
- Dinant’s palm oil extraction mills and plantations in Honduras have been awarded two prestigious International Sustainability and Carbon Certifications – ISCC EU and ISCC Plus – for the sustainability of raw materials and products, supply chain traceability, and control of greenhouse gas emissions.
- The ISCC’s certification process has been expanded to Dinant’s independent fresh fruit palm oil suppliers, of which 15 small producers totaling 1,172 hectares of plantations have so far been certified.
- Dinant invests heavily in using high-yield varieties of palm that require less land. Furthermore, numerous technical and agricultural innovations include the production of home-made organic compost fertilizers that have enabled the Company to reduce chemical fertilization.
- Staff volunteers regularly participate in reforestation activities in Comayagua and San Pedro Sula.
- All of Dinant’s operations have been awarded ISO 14001 since 2014 as a mark of their progress in environmental management.
