Heineken has reduced its carbon emissions despite an increase of 52% in its production volumes since 2008, according to the company’s first report to combine sustainability and financial performance.
The Dutch beer and cider producer, which has five UK breweries and cider mills, released its 2016 annual report earlier this week. It showed the company was making good progress towards its 2020 sustainability targets as well as reporting an operating profit of over €2 million in 2016.
Under its sustainability programme, dubbed ‘Brewing a Better World’, Heineken has achieved a 37% reduction in CO2 emissions from production, compared with the 2008 baseline. This puts the company two years ahead of schedule and within reach of its target of a 40% reduction by the end of the decade.
A range of measures have been employed to help achieve this ambition, with a quarter of the company’s electrical energy and 5% of its thermal energy being met by renewables.
In addition, Heineken has saved €77.6m through energy efficiency since 2009 and has also reduced CO2 emissions from its fridges by almost 46% compared to 2010, putting the company on track to reach a 2020 commitment of 50%.
The company has also made a saving of €13.5m through water efficiency since 2009 and reached its 2018 milestone of decreasing average water consumption in its breweries worldwide to 3.6 hl/hl (hectolitres) in 2016.
A target of 3.5 hl/hl is in place for 2020, which has already been achieved in 63% of Heineken’s total production volume.
In an effort to further improve its sustainability performance, the company is exploring opportunities to shift towards sustainable bio-fuel for road freight and ocean freight in a number of countries.