In water-stressed world, there is no beer

Not too worried about the prospects of future water shortages because you live somewhere with healthy aquifers and free-flowing faucets? Then consider this: without adequate supplies of clean, fresh water on a global scale, agriculture — the most water-intensive of industries — will suffer. And if agriculture suffers, so too will the beer industry.

Depending on where the hops for beer are grown, the water footprint of that lager you enjoy could be as large as 155 litres of water per one litre of beer,  according to WWF. And with half of the planet’s population likely to live in places of high water stress by 2030, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), future water security is very much in the spotlight at the world’s leading brewing companies.

Many of these firms, in fact, were among those responding to CDP’s first Water Disclosure questionnaire, the results of which were released last week. They include Anheuser-Busch InBev, Heineken International, Kiring Holdings, SABMiller and Molson Coors.

So what are these beer companies doing to promote sustainable water use? Among their initiatives:

• Anheuser-Busch has reduced water use at its US breweries by almost 37 per cent since 2000. And earlier this year, it announced a goal of bringing global water usage to 3.5 hectolitres of water per hectolitre of beer produced by 2012. If it reaches that target, it says it would become the most water-efficient global brewer in the world. The company’s Wernigerode brewery in Germany has already surpassed that target, achieving a metric of 3.09 hectolitres of water per hectolitre of beer in 2009. Anheuser-Busch also has three new wastewater treatment plants in Russia that are using a combination of aerobic and anaerobic processess to treat 100 per cent of outgoing water.
• By the end of this year, Heineken aims to lower its average brewery water footprint to 4.6 hectolitres or less for every hectolitre of beer. It’s also building 16 wastewater treatment plants across Africa and the Middle East where no facilities currently exist for treating water. Heineken España’s new brewery in Seville, which can produce up to 450 million litres of beer per year — 30 per cent more than the old brewery — at the same time uses 30 per cent less water and 25 per cent less electric and thermal energy than the previous facility.
• Molson Coors’ water use ratio in breweries currently stands at about 4.55 hectolitres per hectolitre of beer produced. The company has set a global target of reducing water used for production by 15 per cent by the end of 2012, compared to 2008 rates. It also has a dedicated water/environmental sustainability manager on duty at each of its 18 breweries, and this year signed on as a sponsor for CDP’s Water Disclosure project.
• SABMiller this year expected to invest in four new wastewater treatment plants across Europe, Africa and Latin America. Its current water intensity averages 4.3 hectolitres of water per hectolitre of beer produced, and it recently joined in a Water Futures partnership with WWF. The company also captures methane from wastewater at several of its facilities, and uses it as an energy source for operations.
• Kirin Holdings is undertaking similar efforts across the board to reduce the water intensity of its brewing operations. Conservation has proved especially critical in drought-plagued Australia. To address that concern, Kirin’s Lion Nathan’s Castlemaine Perkins Brewery in Queensland built a new treatment facility that uses reverse osmosis to clean wastewater for cleaning, and for use in cooling towers and boilers. That strategy brought the brewery’s waster footprint down from 9.5 litres of water per litre of beer produced to a paltry 2.2 litres of water per litre of beer.

Responding to looming water constraints isn’t only the environmentally responsible thing to do, but could present new business opportunities for the companies that act soonest, says Gregory Wade, global chief supply chain officer for Molson Coors.

“The changing availability of water resource is presenting opportunities to business through demand for new infrastructure, products and services and now is the time to seize these opportunities, address water challenges and build resilience — not once the well has run dry,” he says.