Heineken’s multimillion pound plan to cut carbon emissions
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According to Heineken, the investment is part of its plan to reach net zero carbon emissions across scopes one and two by 2030 for its UK production sites in Hereford, Manchester and Tadcaster and across its full value chain – scope three – by 2040.
The funding included a £3.7m grant from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero and will be utilised to help install heat capturing technology, which will redistribute and reuse excess heat to power other brewing stages.
Once finished, Heineken estimated it will mean a reduction of around 45% in gas usage, leading to a carbon emission reduction at its Manchester brewery.
Company-wide efforts
Heineken UK managing director Boudewijn Haarsma said: “We’ve been around for 150 years and if we want to be here in another 150 years, we need to act now to deliver on our sustainability ambitions. In short, we want to brew a better world.
“This announcement is hugely positive and represents a sizeable inward investment form Heineken into UK decarbonisation.
"It builds on our wider company-wide efforts to reduce our emissions as we continue to work towards our global ambitions to reach net zero across our production sites (scope one and two) by 2030.
“We will not get there alone, we know collaboration with partners will be key.”
The Manchester brewery, which produces more than 700m pints of Heineken, Birra Moretti and Foster’s a year, employs more than 200 people and Heineken anticipates up to 100 people from 10 businesses will work on site during the installation of the heat pumps and network with work due to complete by the end of 2024.
City journey
The final phase will include the site using additional alternative renewable energy and work is currently underway to identify this.
Haarsma added: “There has been a brewer at this site for well over 100 years and we’ve been proudly brewing in Manchester for 15 ears.
“With the city of Manchester’s ambition to reach net zero by 2038, we want to play our part in this journey for the city and it’s people and to share the learnings we gather along the way.”
Heineken said the technology was a major step forward in its mission to reduce carbon emissions as until now, gas has been used to generate the heat needed for particular areas of the brewing process.
Green finance and energy efficiency minister Lord Callanan added: “I’ll certainly raise a glass in honour of this game-changing project backed by Government funding that will help Heineken, Manchester and the country reach our collective net zero ambitions.
“Heat pumps are key to helping us decarbonise our heating and I’m delighted to see Government funding go towards such an innovative scheme that will help cut emissions and show other businesses how to move away from costly fossil fuels.”
