The beer manufacturing process is extremely water intensive, and the industry is taking steps to tackle the issue. But in the Netherlands, different breweries are using different strategies.
Making this heady product of fermented hops and malted barley is a thirsty process from start to finish to make just one litre of beer takes on average 90 liters of water but that may be changing the industry is working towards reducing the amount of water it uses focusing on every stage of the beer supply chain we have to see what can we do in agriculture
What can we do in packaging what can we do in transport and how can we reuse or recycle the water that we use every time the main package of of the water we use is in the agriculture phase of our of our chain so we talk to the growers and we say okay how can we make this more sustainable one association member employing improved sustainability practices can be
Found in the water scarce area of eindhoven in the south of holland here the swinkles family brewers are helping replenish groundwater levels using a purpose-built sub-irrigation system to divert its treated wastewater that would usually end up in rivers by using this system of sprinkles the spare water that we have that we cannot use anymore in our own process
We share it with the farmers that are next to next to the brewery last year the system transported 800 000 cubic meters of purified brewery effluent back to the soil providing enough water for the 20 farmers surrounding the brewery the pump system can also top up groundwater levels by one meter levels that can drop by as much as two meters in the driest months
We have to create new things to cope with this with the scarcity but there are more than 800 active breweries in the netherlands and they don’t all believe water conservation is the key issue when it comes to improving beer’s overall environmental footprint energy use in areas such as brewing packaging transport and even refrigeration all feed into the equation
At hulton breweries near maastricht a major focus is the thermal energy used in the brewing process its new brew house is the first with two types of heat sources steam and hot water to gently brew the beer they claim the energy savings of up to 75 make it the most sustainable brew house in europe we want to be fossil free in in 2030. you only get one chance to
To make a new brew house it will last for another 30 40 years we got to make a big step now because the brew house is about 50 of the energy use of the brewery here reducing water consumption in the brewery isn’t a priority the water used in a brewery is only a very small part of the whole water usage throughout the chain it doesn’t really make a big difference
If you use four or five or six liters for a liter of beer i think big breweries industry the big industry they focus on water because it’s easy to measure and it’s easy to get a sustainable program on water is it’s an important issue you should check it you should look at it but it’s not where you change the world heineken the world’s second largest brewer has
More than 160 breweries and aims to become carbon neutral across its value chain by 2040. combating water scarcity is an important part of its overall sustainability strategy the number of water scarce regions in the world because of climate change is going up and it’s going up quickly so we had a handful years ago today we have 30 and tomorrow we’ll have more so
We work with government and ngo to do things to replenish the watershed that can be reforestation projects where you also step up biodiversity through the nature of the projects it can be addressing illegal logging that could be happening on some of those watersheds more than 95 percent of heineken’s wastewater is now treated before disposal and water consumption
In its breweries decreased by 33 percent between 2008 and 2020. it has set targets to reduce the water usage as its breweries in water-stressed areas to 2.6 liters per litre of beer produced but for the moment the company sees that as the best it can do 2.6 is about where we are with the threshold of what the technology is capable of so to get further than 2.6
We need to invent new technologies until that new technology arrives efficiency is the mantra so our teams essentially look at the end to end process and you’re starting to take the brewing process step by step and re-engineering elements of it so that we’re more efficient along the way opinion within the beer industry may be divided on how much emphasis should
Be placed on reducing its water consumption but according to the un by 2025 two-thirds of the world’s population may be facing water shortages so it’s likely the issue of curbing beer’s thirst is only going to grow in importance
Transcribed from video
Can new innovations reduce beer’s water usage? | FT Food Revolution By Financial Times
