Sustainable water management

Water is the most important raw material of the beverage industry – and clean drinking water is an increasingly valuable good. Apart from the economic responsibility, our industry has, therefore, also a major social responsibility to protect this vital resource. Efficient and sustainable water management requires an integrative approach, which taps the entire optimization potential around water usage. This includes the evaluation of local water catchment areas as well as the reduction of water consumption and the full recycling of any wastewater arising.

On the path towards green beverage packaging

Beverage packaging must be practical, hygienic, free of defects and safe. It must also preserve the integrity of the product while meeting the needs and desires of customers and consumers. But this is not all: The environmental impact of beverage packaging has become a decisive factor in production, use and disposal. Technological developments continue to make ongoing optimization possible. Trends in the further improvement of environmentally friendly beverage packaging include conserving the use of raw materials, increasing the reuse of packaging and boosting the portion of recyclable materials in packaging. In addition to this, techniques using high-pressure in conjunction with sustainable materials have been employed.

Making money with a conscience

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is nothing if not a mouthful. Multinational companies over-engage in a vast range of activities that come under the doing-good umbrella. It spans everything: from volunteering in the local community to looking after employees’ health, from giving out micro-credit to women in Bangladesh to saving the rainforests. With such a fuzzy, wide-ranging subject, many companies find it hard to know what to focus on. Still, CSR is booming. Whether through their websites or glossy reports, big multinationals want to tell the world they are good and ethical and their bosses right and reasonable. None of this means that CSR has suddenly become a great idea. But in practice few big companies can now afford to ignore it.

Energy and water efficiency in the brewing industry 2000 to 2008

Reducing energy and water consumption is an important topic for the brewing industry. Both economic and environmental factors play a decisive role in the quest to minimise energy and water consumption. The question is what energy efficiencies do other breweries achieve and what is best practice? Prompted by an agreement with the government, the Dutch Brewers Association (CBK) set out to develop a methodology in 2000 to establish the worldwide benchmark in specific energy consumption for the brewing industry. The benchmark has been repeated in 2004 and again in 2008.

What is to be done?

”Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. For more than twenty years, since the publication of the Brundtland Report on sustainable development, we have heard the message well, yet our faith in the public and private sectors doing the right thing was fairly weak.