Unica: São Paulo's representative in the sugar and alcohol industry
Unica – the São Paulo Sugar Cane Agroindustry Union represents the sugar cane, sugar
and alcohol business areas in the State of São Paulo, Brazil.
There are three categories of associate industrial units:
the sugar and alcohol producers;
those that only produce alcohol; and
those that concentrate on sugar production.
As the successor to several sectorial organizations in São Paulo, Unica, created
in 1997, enabled the combination of institutional work into a single entity, strengthening
the dialogue with the government and society.
Recognized as a national reference center, Unica safeguards the statistical memory
of Brazilian sugar cane, sugar and alcohol production. It keeps abreast of the progress
achieved in the sector's technological area and fights to open foreign markets for
sugar and alcohol.
As the agency responsible for more than 60% of Brazilian production, it has a natural
leadership position in the country that qualifies it to act as an intermediary with
entities in the other producer States. More than 100 production units are Unica
associates, including traditional sugar exporting groups.
Unica's Objectives
To break protectionist barriers, aiming at expanding the free market of sugar and
alcohol.
To universalize the production and use of fuel ethanol (alcohol), transforming it
into a cmmodity with an environmental value, opening markets for it as a gasoline
oxygenator or as the main fuel for advanced technology vehicles.
To support policies to expand the use of biomass in the energy consumption matrix
in Brazil.
To diversify the operations of sugar producing countries, adding ethanol and cogeneration
of energy to their production programs.
To promote sugar and fuel alcohol for their qualities to improve public health and
the environment.
To develop policies to give competitiveness to biomass, as a clean and renewable
energy source.
To characterize energy from biomass as a concrete alternative to fossil sources,
considering its environmental, social and economic properties: it reduces local
pollution (improving the atmosphere in the large urban centers) and global pollution
(the greenhouse effect), it creates jobs and income in a decentralized fashion,
helping to reduce social inequality, it generates and saves foreign exchange, besides
lowering the dependence on petroleum, that it produced in politically unstable regions.
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