AB InBev to Cut Water Use, GHGs, Packaging

Anheuser-Busch InBev today committed to seven global environmental goals to reduce water use and water risk, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions, packaging and energy use.

AB InBev aims to reach these goals, which are shared across 24 countries, by the end of 2017. The company’s new goals are:

• Reduce water risks and improve water management in 100 percent of its key barley growing regions in partnership with local stakeholders.
• Engage in watershed protection measures at 100 percent of its facilities located in key areas in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Mexico, Peru and the US, in partnership with local stakeholders.
• Reduce global water usage to 3.2 hectoliters of water per hectoliter of production.
• Reduce global GHG emissions per hectoliter of production by 10 percent, including a 15 percent reduction per hectoliter in China.
• Reduce global energy usage per hectoliter of production by 10 percent.
• Reduce packaging materials by 100,000 tons.
• Reach a 70 percent global average of eco-friendly cooler purchases annually.

The commitments build on the three-year global environmental targets on water, energy, carbon emissions and recycling AB InBev reached at the end of 2012. In March the brewer announced it hit its goal of using 3.5 hectoliters of water per hectoliter of production and decreased energy use per hectoliter in breweries and soft drink facilities worldwide by 12 percent against a 2009 baseline.

AB InBev announced the new goals on its fifth annual global celebration of World Environment Day (WED), an initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

AB InBev cut the amount of waste it sent to landfills by 54.8 percent year-on-year, from 104,946 metric tons in 2011 to 47,341 in 2012, according to its 2012 Global Citizenship Report.

In the same period, the amount of materials AB InBev recycled and composted rose by 2.8 percent, from 5,937,251 to 6,102,819 metric tons, and materials used as fuel rose 27 percent, from 6,038 to 7,648 metric tons.