BY UE STUDIO

Updated Monday,25September2023-09:27

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A year and a half ago, HEINEKEN Spain presented its sustainability ambitions to 2025, set five years before its global parent company. Today, the balance sheet is highly satisfactory and, in the words of its president Etienne Strijp, it is thanks to an investment of 30 million euros in sustainability projects from 2022. The brewery was a pioneer in introducing sustainability in its sector and, year after year, is achieving new goals.

Now, with an eye on 2025, the company faces challenges such as making 90% of its sales to the hospitality industry in reusable format, reducing its emissions with innovative agricultural projects, maximizing the circularity of water used in factories, expanding the contribution of its Cruzcampo Foundation and promoting honest and truthful environmental and social communication.

Renewable energy and circularity

These are ambitious objectives, but they are preceded by everything achieved to date. And, among other improvements, by the end of this year 50% of the energy used by HEINEKEN Spain will be of renewable origin. All thanks to the solar thermal plants of its factories in Seville and Valencia, the photovoltaic plant of El Andévalo (Huelva), the production of biogas in its four factories and the biomass boiler of its factory in Jaén. In 2024, it will reach 62% renewable energy, when solar thermal is already at full capacity. With these projects, the brewer will halve its CO2e emissions from 2018: 24,200 tons of CO2e less.

On the other hand, by the end of this year, the reduction in emissions achieved by HEINEKEN Spain throughout its value chain will reach almost 130,000 tons of CO2e, a figure equivalent to the annual emissions of municipalities such as San Sebastián de los Reyes.

At the same time, another of the company's main objectives is to maximize circularity and be zero waste in production. The factories of HEINEKEN Spain recover year after year more than 95% of the waste generated: more than 220,000 tons of waste recovered each year, which are converted into new products such as animal feed or beer vinegar.

In addition, three of them (Jaén, Seville and Madrid) are already certified as '0 waste to landfill' and the fourth, Valencia, will achieve it this year. In terms of packaging, by the end of 2023 the brewer will have reduced almost 5,000 tons of virgin plastic and will use 70% recycled plastic in its secondary packaging. Important advances with the aim of ensuring the best solution to reduce emissions and waste, giving them more lives, which by 2025 will be boosted with more than 90% of sales to hospitality in reusable formats.

And, in terms of water, the brewer achieved the balance of its direct water footprint in 2022, almost a decade before the date set by the company globally: a return of more than 1,900 million liters per year, equivalent to all the water contained in its beers, thanks to the projects developed in Doñana, the Valencian Albufera or the banks of the Jarama River. In addition, since 2008, HEINEKEN Spain has reduced its water consumption in factories by 90 million liters of water, equivalent to the daily water consumption of a city like Seville. Thus, the average consumption of its four factories is already below 3l/l (2.91 l/l), exceeding the target set for this year.

Real commitment

Finally, the brewing company has demonstrated its social commitment by supporting hoteliers, a key sector in which it invested, in 2022, 236 million euros. In addition, this year has seen the light of the first edition of the Barometer FuerzaBar, and the B2B e-commerce platform Eazle that, together with the agreement with Manpower, helps to attract qualified personnel in hospitality. A task that it shares with the Cruzcampo Foundation, whose role continues to be decisive and is the channel through which much of the company's social work is materialized. Among other works, it contributes to youth employability in hospitality and has just started the fourth edition of Talento Cruzcampo, a training and scholarship program that has a labor insertion of 90%. A well-known project that already has more than 200 beneficiaries. For its part, Factoría Cruzcampo, the first microbrewery with a social and non-profit purpose, has welcomed 20,000 visits on this second anniversary.

Made by ue studio

This text has been developed by ue studio, creative branded content and content marketing firm of editorial unit, for HEINEKEN.