Kimberly-Clark Professional inaugurates wind farm in UK

Kimberly-Clark achieves a significant milestone in its commitment to sustainable energy by inaugurating an onshore wind farm, which will supply 80% of its electricity demand, strengthening its commitment to green energy.

With a value of £75 million, the wind park was established in a record time of just 18 months in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. This park stands out as the largest wind asset under the ownership of Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT), a company managed by Octopus Energy Generation. Kimberly-Clark has signed a power purchase agreement to ensure the supply of electricity generated by this park.

The Cumberhead facility, with its 50 MW capacity and 12 turbines, represents the first wind park project outside of North America for the multinational personal care products company. This installation will generate approximately 160,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of renewable energy annually, resulting in a significant annual reduction of 55,625 MTCO2e emissions. This achievement is equivalent to removing 38,628 passenger vehicles from the roads every year.

Craig Bowman, general manager of Kimberly-Clark Professional for the UK and Ireland, emphasizes the importance of responsible and innovative business partnerships. “It is through responsible and innovative business partnerships and investments in new technology like this agreement with ORIT that enables us to make significant changes in this decisive decade and reach our decarbonization goals.”

“We adopt a life cycle approach to sustainability, starting by designing products to reduce consumption, reducing the use of natural resources and diverting our manufacturing waste from landfill. This enables us to provide customers with high performance products and systems that help them reduce usage and waste. By reducing energy use (scope 1) and prioritizing and using renewable energy in our operations (scope 2) we are reducing the carbon impact of our products (customer scope 3 emissions),” he added.

David Bird, Chief Investment Officer of Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT) said: “Officially inaugurating this wind farm is an absolutely fantastic milestone. Onshore wind farms like these are generating much-needed clean green power for the U.K. It’s brilliant to be supplying this renewable power from this wind farm to Kimberly-Clark to help decarbonise their business. The more businesses that follow their lead, the quicker we can accelerate the push to net zero.”

Green energy will power Kimberly-Clark’s manufacturing operations across the UK, covering approximately 80% of its electricity needs in locations such as Barrow, Flint and Northfleet. At the Flint plant, more than 185 million rolls of Scott toilet paper and almost 30 million WypAll cleaning cloths are manufactured annually for the B2B market in Europe, outside the UK. Additionally, household staples are produced, including nearly one billion rolls of Andrex toilet paper and more than 150 million boxes of Kleenex tissue paper.

“We are feeling an immense amount of pride cutting the ribbon on this project today with Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust. Together, as we close in on our ambitious goal to move solely to renewable energy, we continue to invest in the future of the planet, our business and the FMCG industry as a whole, and hope to encourage other organizations, big and small, to do the same along the way,” said Oriol Margo, Sustainability Lead for Kimberly-Clark EMEA.

This is part of a sustainability strategy in the United Kingdom and Ireland that aims to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030, and K-C Professional is collaborating with Octopus on the development of on-site solar energy as well as green hydrogen projects.

Furthermore, the company aims to reduce total operational emissions in the United Kingdom and Ireland (Scope 1 and 2) by 85% compared to 2015 by the year 2025, reaffirming its commitment to sustainability.