Energy & carbon
Performance
Improving energy efficiency and reducing emissions
In the last 12 months, our energy use has remained constant at 138MJ per hectolitre of lager. Our total energy use for the year was 24 petajoules (PJ)*.
Due in part to a cleaner fuel mix, the carbon emissions per hectolitre of lager produced fell to 12.4 kgCO2e/hl, 10% less than the previous year and a 17% improvement against the target set in 2008. Our emissions during the period totalled 2.1 million tonnes of CO2e.
Fossil fuel emissions from energy use at our breweries down 10% to 12.4 kgCO2e per hl
In South Africa, reducing electricity consumption is a key component of SAB (Pty) Ltd’s strategy to reduce its energy and carbon footprint. Since 2008, a number of initiatives have been implemented to reduce electricity consumption. These have included installing high-efficiency lighting and improved metering, reducing the temperature of water used in bottle washing and raising awareness amongst employees. These have helped SAB (Pty) Ltd to reduce its annual electricity consumption throughout its breweries by 17% since 2008.
At Kompania Piwowarska, we have saved about 35,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions over the last five years by improving the energy efficiency of our breweries. Between 2003 and 2012, for example, our Poznan brewery has reduced the amount of heat energy it uses to produce a hectolitre of beer by 57%, down from 135.39 MJ/hl to 58.34 MJ/hl.
Using renewable energy such as biogas from our waste water treatment plants also helps us reduce our CO2e emissions. During 2012, over 15% of the total gas used to power the boiler at our Tychy brewery was biogas from the brewery's waste water treatment plant.
Investing in renewables
The proportion of energy that is generated from renewable sources has remained unchanged at 3% this year.
Where possible, we seek to generate energy from brewing waste in order to create a valuable resource and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Many of our businesses have installed systems to generate biogas from the anaerobic treatment of waste water.
This year, SABMiller India built a new boiler in the brewery at Aurangabad which uses briquettes made out of bagasse, sawdust, groundnut shells and a variety of other biomass. The boiler was commissioned in May and builds upon the success of other similar boilers in Rochees, Haryana and Charminar. Since installing biomass boilers at these original three breweries, we have reduced CO2 emissions associated with these three plants by 91% since 2008.
Reducing emissions in our supply chain
We aim to distribute our products as efficiently as possible and we use alternative forms of transport or seek opportunities to optimise our logistics.
In Colombia, Bavaria has a number of projects to reduce emissions in its supply chain. For distribution, drivers are provided with fuel-efficient driving training and Bavaria has established an emissions standard for all new trucks. Bavaria is also piloting non HFC fridges in the market, which it plans to expand during the coming year.
This year Trinity, our global procurement business, joined the Carbon Disclosure Project Supply Chain programme. This will help us to move beyond the measurement of direct greenhouse gas emissions of our breweries and distribution fleet to include climate change risks across our supply chain, including suppliers.
*Metric correction from previous report
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