Yesterday, in part one of the beer diaries, we heard about the world’s first “carbon neutral brewery” in Austria.

The Gos Brewery, like DB, is part of the Heineken Group. Declared carbon neutral in 2016, it has switched entirely to renewable energy, production waste is converted into biogas, and the brewery makes use of surplus heat from a neighbouring sawmill.

They’re the sort of innovations one would expect from companies claiming they’re at the cutting edge of sustainability.

But in New Zealand most beers you drink are likely to have been brewed using fossil fuelled boilers.

So, what are DB and Lion’s claims to the title of the country’s greenest brew?

DB

DB used Earth Day, last week, to announce a partnership with the Nature Conservancy as part of what it called its “bold sustainability ambitions.”

But DB managing director Peter Simons made a point of saying at the announcement that “as a brewer, we need to make meaningful changes to actively reduce our carbon footprint by taking real action and not just buying carbon offsets.”

That reference to not just buying carbon offsets was almost certainly a dig at DB’s main rival Lion, whose carbon neutral status is, as we’ll hear, partly achieved through offsetting.

Simons said the brewer was on track to exceed its goal of halving its carbon footprint from its 2018 baseline of 4,554 tonnes CO2 by 2030.

Between 2008 and 2018 DB reduced its carbon footprint by nearly 50 per cent. Since then further reductions had been achieved with initiatives such as moving from a coal boiler to a biomass steam at its Timaru brewery.

Simons said DB’s ambition was to source 100 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, to reach zero waste to landfill in production, and to balance 100 per cent of the consumed volume of water that the company uses by 2030

“We are committing to a new array of environmental targets to reach carbon neutrality, zero waste status and net positive water impact that coincide with Heineken’s new global commitments, also announced today, including being the first major brewer to pledge carbon neutrality in its full value chain by 2040.”

DB’s 2020 Sustainability Report can be viewed here.

Lion

If New Zealand has an equivalent to Austria’s Gos Brewery, it’s Lion’s the Fermentist. The Christchurch micro-brewery is fully electric powered with the main grid supplemented by 25kW of solar photovoltaic panels and 11.5kW of solar hot water. An effort is made to source raw materials as close as possible to the brewery.

In February 2020 it received certification from Toitu Envirocare that all of its beers and ciders were carbon zero – the first brewery to do so.

It’s the poster-child for Lion and how it wants to viewed.

“Whether you reach for a bottle of Steinlager Classic, a glass of Whither Hills…. a Havana coffer or any other Lion product, you know that it’s been made in a brewery, winery or roastery that is Toitu carbonzero certified,” Lion declared in the wrap-around advert published in the NZ Herald back in February.

But with fossil fuels still contributing a huge chunk of Lion’s carbon footprint the Fermentist is more a glimpse of the future than a representative snap-shot of the company’s operation.

Its main North Island breweries use natural gas to power their boilers and the South Island breweries use LPG.

Carbon News asked Lion for some concrete examples of the actions that had been taken to cut emissions in the brewing process. It said the primary focus had been improving the steam process efficiency:

•   Reduce product boil times

•   Optimise tunnel pasteuriser performance

•   CIP temperature reductions

•   Boiler operational pressure reduced

•   Improve Hot water tank performance and current heat recovery processes

And it said it had signed up to EECA’s Energy Transition Accelerator Programme which assists large energy users in developing a strategic long-term road map to decarbonisation by focusing on energy efficiency, emerging technology, renewable fuels and electrification of process heat.

Details of Lion's Toitu certification can be viewed here.

Like most companies claiming Carbon Zero status, Lion depends on offsets. In a future instalment of the beer diaries Carbon News will take a look at offsetting.