- Heineken is supporting a long-term contract with a Dutch battery powered container carrier, Zero Emissions Services BV, that will deploy a self-propelled container utilizing only battery power. The company was founded to make inland shipping more sustainable.
- Birra Peroni, an Asahi brand, has launched a traceability solution on the public Ethereum blockchain for supply chain offered by Ernest and Young, called EY OpsChain Traceability. This is part of the company’s ‘100% made in Italy’ malt initiative, a fundamental strategic asset for the company.
- Molson Coors is negotiating a contract to underpin a 10-year deal with RWE
(German energy company which generates and trades electricity) to provide 75GW hours of renewable energy per year (equivalent to energy used by around 25,000 households). In turn, this energy will enable the production of 1B pints each year in the UK with 100% renewable energy. - Sinebrychoff brewery, the oldest brewery in Nordic countries and the oldest foodstuff company in Finland, has been producing its beverages with 100% renewable energy since the beginning of 2021. By compensating the rest of the emissions, the company beer and soft drink production is carbon free. The company is the world’s first carbon neutral manufacturing of Coca-Cola.
- Diageo launches Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiative, a standalone business called Pronghorn, to boost Black community investment in the spirits industry. Pronghorn plans to boost brands and businesses to help the Black community gain greater involvement in the spirits marketplace. Diageo has teamed up with industry veterans Dia Simms and Erin Harris to launch this DEI initiative.
- Absolut announced a trial for 2,000 paper-based bottles across Sweden and the UK to test the viability of paper as an alternative to single use plastics in beverage applications. The first prototype has 100% recycled content, with 57% paper and 43% recycled plastic, with the latter used to create a barrier layer for the bottle.
- Simpson Malt has announced that a total of 28 trucks of their haulage fleet at the Tweed Valley Maltings have switched from diesel to HVO – a synthetic, paraffinic fuel made from 100% renewable raw materials and supplied by Crown Oil Ltd. The impact is reduced net carbon emissions by 90%, equating to nearly 4,000 tons of CO2 being removed. The synthetic HVO also reduces NOx emissions by up to 27% and particulate matter by up to 84%.
- Boortmalt’s Antwerp plant is using a breakthrough technology to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption. The technology belongs to Opinch, an Antwerp scaleup, that introduces, via a patented and novel approach, a technology that overcomes the hurdles faced by conventional technologies to upgrade waste heat into process heat.
- Soufflet announced, on the Day of Safety, the “WeDoSafe” programme, aimed at ensuring the safety of the company employees and collaborators.
- Unilever is introducing fully recyclable toothpaste tubes in its oral care brands as part of wider plans to convert the entire toothpaste portfolio to widely recyclable packaging by 2025. The initiative will commence with France and India, two of the biggest markets of the company. The company is using High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), which is one of the most widely recyclable plastics globally. In a similar move, GSK Consumer Healthcare, has committed to making more than 1B toothpaste tubes recyclable by 2025.
- A university student, Lucy Hughes, created a plastic alternative from fish waste called MarinaTex, using byproducts of the fishing industry (i.e., fish skin, scales). This product is intended to replace plastic typically used in bakery bags, sandwich packs and tissue boxes and has already won the international James Dyson award.
- New Belgium Co, an American craft brewer, has created the first nationally distributed carbon neutral beer, which is a new product intended to focus efforts on tackling climate change. The beer, ‘Torched Earth Ale’ uses ingredients such as dandelions, hop extracts and smoke-tainted water as a replacement of the usual purified ingredients used to make beer. These ingredients make for a smokey flavoured ale, with not such a nice taste, to mimic a beer made with the kind of ingredients that would be available in a climate-ravaged future.
Toast Ale is an award-winning beer brewed with fresh surplus bread from local sandwich makers and bakeries, together with malted barley, hops, yeast and water. The beer is supplied to pubs, bars and events in reusable kegs. For the production process, the partner brewers have onsite wind turbines and source barley from local farms.