South Africa: Castle Lite beer switching to renewable energy

Castle Lite, a beer brand within the South African Breweries (SAB) stable, is switching to renewable energy. This comes as a response to global calls to grow renewable energy and mitigate climate change, ESI Africa reported on October 27.

All seven of SAB’s breweries in South Africa are powered through solar power, with the Alrode brewery in Johannesburg also making use of biogas facilities. From January to August this year, the seven breweries generated over 9.7GWh of renewable electricity and this has also resulted in 9,443 tons of CO2 emissions reductions since the start of the year.

The brand is on a journey to be 100% brewed with renewable electricity and to fully switch to renewable sources by 2025, The move is in line with the SAB and holding company, Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), global commitment to the 2025 Sustainability Goals in climate action by adding renewable electricity capacity to regional grids and reducing CO2 emissions across the globe.

In 2020, SAB and AB InBev Africa announced that their breweries across South Africa had introduced on-site solar facilities as part of a new multi-billion-rand energy project. The ultimate goal of the project, the group said, is to purchase 100% of the business’s electricity requirements at manufacturing sites across Africa by 2025.

AB InBev’s global renewable energy commitment is to have 50% of the company’s purchased electricity come from renewable energy sources by 2020, and 100% by 2025.

“We know how important sustainability and our environmental future is for South Africa, but sometimes, it feels like such a big task that we can’t do anything to make a difference. As a brand that prides itself on innovation, Castle Lite is making the switch to brew with renewable electricity in order to ensure that making a difference is easier,” said Castle Lite brand director, Colleen Duvenage.

Duvenage continued: “As a business and brand of our magnitude, it is our responsibility to ensure we are leading the way in sustainability initiatives. Castle Lite is committed to switching to brew 100% of our extra cold refreshment with renewable electricity by 2025 … Castle Lite is not just playing a part in being the change we want to see in the world but we are actively forging the way forward so that others can follow and do the same.”

27 October, 2021