Heineken: Going green and brewing for a better future

On September 10th, Heineken launched the results of its 2011 Sustainability Report, as a part of the company’s world wide initiative of being the most eco-friendly brewing company by 2020.

The results where made public via an info-graphic that showed the 3 main principles of the company in its lengthy going green campaign: Improve (keeping the company’s impact on the environment as low as possible), Empower (constant investment in people and communities) and Impact (a positive influence on the role of beer in society).

In the “Improve” chapter, Heineken dedicated their vision to 2 perspectives: Green brewer (All their energy consumption levels was lower than those of 2010 eg: 4hl water/hl beer in 2011 versus 4,1 hl water/hl beer in 2010, the re-usage rate of their returnable packaging was 88,6% (Kegs, bottles, beer shuttles), the recycling rate of their non-returnable packaging was 73,5% (PET, plastic), and ECOROM has recycled 57,6% of the packaging total that Heineken brought to our market) and Green Commerce (Heineken made sure to add reduced transport routes ( about 1 million kilometres shorther), reduced carbon dioxide emissions (5%) and introduced green refrigerating units which are said to use 35% less energy than normal refrigerators)

“Empower” means that Heineken took care of its employees and all the communities surrounding the company. The company launched “Heineken for communities” in Romanian counties of Harghita and Constanta, a program financing 4 NGO’s projects with over RON 252,000.

Almost 55% of middle and senior management positions inside the company were ran by women and, within the company, the frequency of accidents dropped to 0,3 cases /100 full time employees.

Last, but nevertheless the least, “Impact” meant Responsible consumption (introducing the Cool at work intern program to all of its employees and promoted the responsible consumption of their products on all branding materials), Enablers ( 95% of Heineken’s suppliers signed the “Suppliers Code”, an agreement about integrity, human rights and enviroment management rights) and Partnership for Progress (the National Map of Health Services – dedicated to people that needed help with their drinking problems and a national study for evaluating public and private health services that offered solutions for people with drinking habits.)

For a broader glimpse at Heineken’s Sustainability report, check the infographic below or you can download the full report here.