Hitting the source

28
MAY
2010

Author: Jonathan Webb - Categories: CSR & Green

Brewer SAB Miller's scientists, based in South Africa, have announced that they've developed a secret technology to produce significant energy savings, which will be rolled out to their breweries throughout the world. Although the brewer has not revealed details, it reveals an industry that is thirsty for sustainable beer production solutions.

African brewers seem to be leading the way for sustainable beer production. Heineken has been experimenting with plants that ferment the beer at a regular rate, with Herman van de Bergh of Heineken informing the Sunday Times of their key problem: "Energy you can create anywhere. You can’t create water just like that."

Andy Wales, head of sustainable development for SABMiller, has recognised the coming crisis in water supplies, and stated that companies and governments need to be "water smart".

Breweries are highly reliant on ever scarcer water supplies - obviously integral to their business. Current estimates suggests that there is a 40% gap between water supply and demand, and the future will likely widen these disparities.

The United Nation's water programme believes that developed countries' use of water will increase by 50% by 2020, and 60% of European cities are using groundwater at a rate faster than can be replenished. 57% of all the world's freshwater supplies are currently appropriated for use.

Yet the industry is taking action to reduce its vulnerability to price rises in water. It takes 4.5 pints of water to make a single pint of beer; it required nine pints in the 1970s (for non-UK drinkers, a pint is roughly equivalent to a half-litre).

The ability of companies to use water supplies more intelligently also brings other environmental benefits. The Sunday Times reports that Shepherd Neame, the UK-based brewer, has reduced its energy consumption by 50%. It has diverted the steam used in its heating process to heat the unfermented beer, hastening the production of alcohol.

Rain-soaked residents of the UK may be puzzled at decreasing water stocks, but the increasing competition for global resources, and the desertification threat presented by global climate change, will cause water prices to rise in the medium term. The later companies develop sustainable water sourcing initiatives, the more likely they are to find themselves in the drink as environmental regulations and prices increase.