World: AB InBev adopts new series of aggressive five-year environmental goals

The world's biggest beer brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev has adopted an aggressive series of five-year environmental goals, calling for further reductions in water and energy consumption and setting its first formal targets for packaging reductions and eco-friendly coolers, GreenBiz.com reported on June, 5.

The seven new commitments come just four months after AB InBev revealed it had surpassed previous three-year commitments for water, energy and waste.

The Belgian-based brewer already has saved enough water to produce about 25 billion cans of AB InBev beverages. Currently, it uses an average of 3.5 hectolitres of water for every hectolitre of production.

Now it is trying to squeeze more from the process: The new five-year goal aims to reach a global average of 3.2 hectolitres of water per hectolitre of production. For those who like to visualize this sort of thing, that works out to the amount of water it would take to fill approximately 5,400 Olympic swimming pools.

The Carterville brewery in Georgia, USA, already has outstripped that goal: It uses just 2.8 hectolitres of water per hectolitre of production.

To move toward that measure in other production facilities, the company is introducing water management measures in each of its key barley growing regions through partnerships with local stakeholders and growers. In addition, it is introducing watershed protection measures at all of its facilities in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Mexico, Peru and the United States.

06 June, 2013