Since its founding, Carlsberg Group has had a strong vision of giving back to society. The purpose of brewing for a better today and tomorrow has never been timelier. The Carlsberg Group launched its ESG programme, Together Towards ZERO and Beyond (TTZAB), in 2022 to address the ESG topics impacting its business and its stakeholders and continued to make progress throughout 2023. Key actions, challenges and results are highlighted in the ESG Report 2023 that was published today.

“We have made steady year-on-year progress across all eleven focus areas in the programme. This includes taking our first steps in our newer focus areas, namely making another power purchase agreement to source renewable electricity from new assets in Lithuania, establishing projects with NGOs to replenish water in areas of high water risk in Cambodia, China, India, Laos, and putting regeneratively grown barley into our brews in Finland, France and the UK. Partnerships are key to our success as we continue to deliver on our ambitions,” says Simon Boas Hoffmeyer, Senior Director, Sustainability & ESG at Carlsberg Group.

The Carlsberg Group has enhanced transparency within selected focus areas based on new data insights, new activities, and evolving stakeholder interests. For example, the ESG Report 2023 provides more details on the Group’s value chain carbon emissions and packaging, as well as a summary of its preliminary double materiality assessment, done in preparation for the upcoming Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive that will reshape ESG reporting going forward. Additionally, more transparency is provided within the Human Rights focus area with the Group’s first stand-alone Human Rights Report that was also published today. 

“As we embark on a new year, we are optimistic about our work, yet we remain very aware that we have a lot of work to do towards our targets in 2030 and 2040. We have ambitious targets and commitments, and our journey is complex. Closing the gaps between where we are and where we want to be demands focus and extensive collaboration across the entire value chain,” says Simon Boas Hoffmeyer. 

Performance Highlights 2023:

ZERO Carbon Footprint

• Cutting carbon at our breweries: 7% reduction in relative carbon emissions since 2022, and 59% reduction since 2015.
• Cutting carbon across our value chain: 16% reduction in relative carbon emissions from 2015-2022, exceeding our 2022 target.
  
  

ZERO Farming Footprint

• Supporting regenerative agriculture: Pilots running in France, UK and Finland produced 6,927 tonnes of regeneratively grown barley for our Kronenbourg 1664, Carlsberg and KOFF brews (≈ 0.4% of global raw material volume in 2023). Focus will be on scaling these pilots in the coming years to maximise our efforts.
  
  

ZERO Packaging Waste

• Increasing recycled content: Working with suppliers and implementing new solutions to increase recycled content globally by 5pp from 2019-2022, from 29% to 34% across our PET, aluminium, and glass primary packaging (bottles and cans).
  
  

ZERO Water Waste

• Replenishing water in Asia: Establishing new partnerships in China and Laos with WWF, in Cambodia with TapEffect and in India with WaterAid, to replenish the water consumed at 8 of our sites in high-risk areas and to benefit people in local communities.
• Improving water efficiency at breweries: Maintaining our strong performance at 2.5 hl/hl globally, while achieving further reductions towards 1.7 hl/hl in areas of high water risk, with a performance of 2.2 hl/hl.
  
  

ZERO Irresponsible Drinking

• Offering desirable products and responsible choices with our NoLo brews: 28.5% of our brews sold globally were no- or low-alcohol (≤3.5%), up from 26% in 2022.
  
  

ZERO Accidents Culture

• Driving down our lost-time accident rate: The lost-time accident rate has been reduced by 25% since 2022. Since 2015 it has been reduced by 53%.
  
  

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

• Increasing women in leadership: Women representing 30.1% of senior leadership roles across our markets and operations (up from 28.3% in 2022), achieving the first of our three DE&I targets to improve the gender balance.
  
  

Living By Our Compass

• Maintaining our robust compliance programme: In 2023, our markets assessed 1,073 compliance controls, rating 98% of them as effective and adopting 19 action plans for areas requiring improvement.
  
  

Human Rights

• Providing stakeholders with our first Human Rights Report: We enhanced transparency within this focus area with a dedicated report and conducted two enhanced human rights due diligence analyses.
  
  

Responsible Sourcing

• Rolling out our new Responsible Sourcing programme: Conducted 8 audits in China, India, Myanmar, and Turkey in 2023, and we gained access to 40 additional audits of Carlsberg suppliers by other companies through our Sedex membership.
  
  

Community Engagement

• Engaging locally in our markets: Our brands and companies supported and led locally relevant ESG initiatives, including continued support to employees and communities in Ukraine.