North American brewer Molson Coors has announced plans to halve global carbon emissions and achieve zero waste across its major manufacturing sites by 2025 as part of its new sustainability strategy unveiled yesterday.
Among its ‘Beer Print’ 2025 green targets the beverage giant has committed to reducing carbon emissions from its direct operations by 50 per cent from 2016 levels, as well as cutting emissions from its supply chain by 20 per cent over the same period.
The company is also aiming to improve water efficiency at its breweries worldwide by 22 per cent between 2016 and 2025, in order to produce 2.8 hectolitres of beer from every 2.8 of water used.
The brewer also plans to boost water efficiency in its agricultural supply chain and malting operations by 10 per cent over the same period, which it says equates to the same volume of water used by Molson Coors breweries throughout the world.
In addition, the company said it would source 100 per cent of its barley and hops from suppliers worldwide that grow, produce and deliver according to its sustainability standards by 2025.
It is the first sustainability report released by Molson Coors since its acquisition of MillerCoors in October last year, making it one of the world’s largest brewers, with beer brands including Cobra, Carling and Worthington’s.
Kim Marotta, global senior director of corporate responsibility at Molson Coors, said the company now had a greater responsibility than ever “to make a positive impact on the world”. “Our new sustainability strategy reflects our broadest set of goals to date – a comprehensive, long-term plan that will put us on the leading edge as we look to 2025,” she added in a statement.
The new green goals were announced as the company provided an update on the progress it made last year towards its 2020 sustainability targets.
While announcing plans to achieve zero waste to landfill at all of its major manufacturing sites by 2025, the company claimed it was already “well on the way” to meeting this target, having so far achieved the goal at 13 of its facilities.
However, overall it suggests a lowering of ambition, with the company having previously set a target date of 2020 by which to achieve zero waste to landfill.
Meanwhile, the company’s absolute energy use and purchased electricity both increased slightly last year, which it said was due to including additional owned warehouses in Canada in its Scope One energy data.
The firm did surpass its greenhouse gas goal for last year, though, producing 8.10kg of CO2 per hectolitre of beer produced in 2016, which it said represented a 3.2 per cent improvement on its 8.37kg target.
Source: businessgreen.com
