HEINEKEN Ireland publishes milestone Sustainability progress report

Business in the Community Ireland

HEINEKEN Ireland has released its sustainability progress report. The report details significant reductions in the brewer’s carbon emissions, water usage and waste production in the decade since it began reporting under HEINEKEN’s Global Sustainability Strategy, Brewing a Better World. During that time, the Cork city-based brewer has cut its carbon emissions by more than half (55%) and has achieved zero waste to landfill status. HEINEKEN’s Irish operation have also donated a total of €480,000 and 600 volunteer hours to over 50 local causes. The report, which details the latest sustainability progress across six pillars of activity, is available to view here.

Significantly, and in particular through the removal of plastic from its Heineken® festive pack sold at Christmas, 2019 also represented the start of HEINEKEN Ireland’s journey towards removing all plastic shrink and can connectors from its products by the first quarter of 2021. In total, as part of this work, HEINEKEN Ireland will remove almost 4 million pieces of consumer-facing plastic, weighing 93kilo’s, from across its extensive portfolio of beers and ciders.

HEINEKEN Ireland’s sustainability achievements were recognised in 2019 when the brewer was awarded Bord Bia’s prestigious Sustainability Project Impact Award for excellence in corporate and public sustainability. This win came a year after HEINEKEN Ireland became the first drinks company to receive Business in the Community Ireland’s Business Working Responsibly Mark.

Recently, HEINEKEN Ireland announced it was sustainably repurposing beer that was returned from the cellars of shuttered pubs following the sudden closure of the sector due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The brewer worked to convert the returned product into green electricity and agricultural fertiliser.

Commenting on the release of the report, Barbara-Anne Richardson, HEINEKEN Ireland’s Sustainability Manager said: 2019 marked another year of important progress on our sustainability goals under our global Brewing a Better World strategy. We have been operating under this strategy for ten years now and have made a huge amount of progress in that time. 2019 was also the start of our journey towards removing over 4 million pieces of plastic from our beer and cider portfolio by  next year. “

“We were particularly delighted to be recognised for our sustainability progress by Bord Bia through their Sustainability Project Impact award and are delighted to have been shortlisted this year for Chambers Ireland’s Sustainable Business Impact awards.”


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