Heineken 2025
Title: HEINEKEN UK’s Sustainability Strategy: ‘Brew a Better World’
Introduction: Our Brew a Better world (BaBW) ambitions are an important part of our business and the decisions we make. The aim of the BabW strategy is to minimise our negative impacts and risks and increase our positive impacts and opportunities.
Our Brew a Better World strategy was developed in close alignment with our internal and external stakeholders. It prioritises three pillars – Environmental, Social and Responsible, with nine ambitions and one or more concrete and measurable goals under each of these ambitions. Across this strategy, we phase and prioritise our efforts, targeting action where it is needed most.
Environmental
A key goal of our Brew a Better World strategy is to reach net zero carbon by 2040 across our value chain. This strategy is aligned with the latest climate science and translates ambition into action in both the near and long-term.
We are working hard to reduce emissions under our direct control through energy efficiency and accelerating the transition to renewable energy, including renewable electricity (solar, wind, hydro) and renewable thermal energy (heat pumps, sustainable biomass, renewable biogas and biomethane).
We are also working closely with our suppliers and partners to help them to set science-based commitments, share knowledge on renewable energy and develop and scale solutions that will benefit the entire industry.
Globally, we have reduced our C02 emissions by 16% (across our entire value chain) since 2022, 84% of our electricity for production is from renewable sources and 98% of our packaging is recyclable by design.
Social
Embracing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) is not only the right thing to do for people, but also essential to be successful as a business. A diverse workforce brings diverse viewpoints and perspectives to the company. It leads to better decision making, a deeper understanding of our consumers and customers, more innovation and increased performance
Our business thrives on fairness, human connection and the joy of bringing people together. We are working to create a fair and safe workplace around the world. This means moving towards gender balance at senior levels, paying our employees globally a fair wage and creating fair living and working standards for third-party employees and Brand Promoters.
Responsible
Beer is a natural fermented drink that, when enjoyed in moderation, can be part of a balanced lifestyle. However, when alcohol is not consumed responsibly there are clear health and behavioural risks. For some people and on some occasions it is better not to drink at all.
That is why we have always been committed to advocating responsible consumption and supporting efforts to address harmful consumption. We aim to lead the debate, giving people more choice with our 0.0 portfolio, empowering them with clear and transparent information and support actions that tackle harmful consumption.
In 2024, we launched our company moderation mantra: Low. Slow. No. This mantra focuses on providing information on ‘low’ alcohol intake, encouraging ’slow’ and moderate consumption, and expanding ‘no’ alcohol options to give consumers greater choice.
Project Title 1: Reach Net Zero Carbon: HEINEKEN £25m investment to reduce carbon emissions at Manchester Brewery.
Objectives 1: A key goal is to reach net zero carbon emissions across all production sites (scopes 1 and 2) by 2030.
Project Description 1: In 2023, we announced a £25 million investment in our Manchester Brewery through the installation of advanced heat pump technology. This marked a key milestone in our sustainability journey and the decarbonisation of beer production.
The heat pumps, powered by 100% renewable electricity, have replaced thermal energy generated by natural gas by recovering waste heat from the brewing process, upgrading it and redistributing it across the Brewery through an interconnected heat network. This circular thermal system allows for significant reduction in fossil fuel consumption, transforming how energy is managed in the brewery.
Outcomes 1: The new heat pump and network system is projected to significantly reduce carbon emissions at our largest UK brewery,
Manchester is playing a pioneering role in adopting this technology and supporting our 2030 net zero production target.
The brewery is currently in the optimisation phase, gradually ramping up the use of heat pumps that recover waste heat from the cooking plant and integrating the entire site into the new heat network.
Once fully operational, it is estimated the installation will lead to an estimated 40% reduction in on-site gas use. The Manchester brewery employs 240 people.
Our investment into the heat pumps was supported by the IETF who awarded £3.7million towards the project. This enabled us to proceed with and unlock vital capital investment into our UK breweries.
Project Title 2: Towards Healthy Watersheds: Reverse Osmosis at our Tadcaster Brewery
Objectives 2: Reduce average water usage to 2.6 hl/hl in water-stressed areas, and 2.9 hl/hl worldwide by 2030.
Project Description 2: As part of our ‘Towards Healthy Watersheds and Nature ambition’ we aim to reduce average water usage globally. In the UK we continue to focus on improving water efficiency across all our production sites to ensure we are making great beers and ciders whilst using as little water as possible.
At our Tadcaster Brewery, we source our water from local boreholes rather than the mains supply.
Before we can use it for brewing, the water must be filtered to remove sediment and minerals. In the past, this process led to a portion of the extracted water discarded as waste.
To address this, we installed a reverse osmosis plant, an advanced filtration system that helps us reduce wate and improve water recovery. The reverse osmosis system allows us to filter and purify water more efficiently, improving the quality of water taken at source and meaning more of it can be used in our brewing operations.
Outcomes 2: The improvement of water efficiency at Tadcaster has been a great success as we’ve seen a reduction in our water wastage at the Brewery, marking a significant improvement in efficiency.
This reduction has also decreased the amount of groundwater extraction required to support brewing operations, easing pressure on natural resources in the area.
Tangible investments in infrastructure and process improvements have laid a strong foundation for future optimisation efforts across our value chain.