The True Cost of Beer

At Adnams, they “believe in doing the right thing – not just because it makes [them] feel good, but because it makes business sense.” This belief has led them to use lifecycle techniques to successfully calculate the total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (CO_2-eq) of each bottle they brew.

To conform to British carbon footprint calculation standards (PAS 2050:2011), the assessment was a cooperative with the Adapt Low Carbon Group and the University of East Anglia (UEA). The assessment, which covers all ten beer varieties, took six months to produce and an additional 6 months to verify by a third party.

The cradle to grave methodology includes calculating the total CO_2-eq emissions of various stages of production. This would include every stage of production up to and including the agricultural manufacture of hops and cereals to the production, recycle, and eventual disposal of the bottle.

Each stage will inevitably have different sways on the final emissions. For example, the study finds the greatest effect is the manufacturing of bottles. This result has led Adnams to replace the signature heavy Spindrift bottle to the lighter bottles used in their other lines. This move resulted in a 20% reduction of the Spindrift carbon footprint. To help reduce this impact further, Admans asks customers to please recycle their bottles.

It is important to note that CO_2-eqand carbon dioxide emissions are not the same thing. To assess the effect greenhouse gases have on the environment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has calculated conversion factors called Global Warming Potentials. These factors compare a greenhouse gas’ environmental effect in comparison to an equivalent mass of CO₂. When converted to this standard mass of CO_2-eq and tallied, the total carbon footprint is determined.

This process of calculating CO_2-eq can be long and complicated. Adnams’ Environmental Sustainability Manager, Benedict Orchard, notes, “it’s not as simple as just measuring electricity usage.” It often involved many mass and energy balances to determine emission estimates not often measured instrumentally. It can also involve the crunching of large data sets from various locations and various formats, with many unknown values. These unknowns are inevitably estimated using engineering calculations, research, and experimentations.

This testament to Adnams’ environmental commitment is not the first. In 2008, Adnams released East Green, a carbon neutral beer. Retail Management Accountant Richard Carter affirmed that “Adnams is fully committed to ensuring its environmental impact is a positive one and as part of this, we continually push to improve our environmental performance year-on-year. Being environmentally aware and taking action to lead the way on the green agenda is fundamental to the way Adnams operates – and has been for many years… Whilst it’s reassuring to know how ‘green’ our beer is, the results of this assessment will help us to improve even further.”

Though environmental assessments on this scale have yet to blossom industrially in North America as it has in Europe, as the benefits aren’t well understood. Amongst other benefits, an environmental assessment of this scale can help a company save money on pollution fines, production costs, and energy usage. Adnams is right, thinking green can add green to your bottom line in more ways than one.

Images and Source: Adnams