Since 2015, the Carlsberg Group has delivered reductions of 6% in energy consumption (kWh/hl), 14% in CO₂ emissions (kg CO₂/hl) and 6% in water consumption (hl/hl). Meanwhile, 17% of the Group’s energy consumption now comes from renewable sources such as biomass, solar power and certificates with guarantees of origin. The Group has also inaugurated a solar panel installation at its facility in Dali, China, that is the fourth largest brewery installation of its kind in the world.

“In 2016, we continued our efforts to improve our sustainability performance by further reducing energy consumption, CO₂ emissions and water usage. We're pleased that all three areas delivered progress faster than anticipated, and we are now taking our sustainability efforts even further as part of our Group Strategy, SAIL’22” says Simon Boas Hoffmeyer, Sustainability Director, Carlsberg Group.

The Carlsberg Group also further expanded its efforts to reduce drink driving, prevent sales to people under the legal age and provide consumers with more detailed and easily accessible information about ingredients, nutrition and responsible drinking. A further 31% of the Group’s beers now carry responsible drinking information, bringing this to 85% of total volumes and in reach of the 2017 target of 100%.

The 2016 Sustainability Report describes how sustainability is embedded in the Carlsberg Group’s new corporate strategy, SAIL’22. It provides an updated materiality matrix, a new end-to-end carbon footprint analysis and an updated water risk assessment.

2016 highlights:

• Energy & carbon: The Carlsberg Group continued to improve the efficiency of its breweries, achieving its 2017 three-year target a year ahead of schedule.
  • Energy consumption was reduced by 4% to 27.7 kWh/hl compared to 29 kWh/hl in 2015 (a reduction of around 6% against the 2014 baseline).
  • Carbon emissions were reduced by 10% to 6.3 kg CO₂/hl compared to 7.0 kg CO₂/hl in 2015 (a reduction of around 14% against the 2014 baseline).
  • Energy coming from renewable sources, including biomass, solar power and renewable energy certificates with guarantees of origin, grew to 17.1% from 15.4% in 2015. The Carlsberg Group also inaugurated a massive solar panel installation at its facility in Dali, China – the fourth largest brewery installation of its kind in the world.

• Water: The Carlsberg Group improved its water efficiency, reducing consumption to 3.2 hl/hl compared to 3.4 hl/hl in 2015 (an improvement of 6% against the 2014 baseline). In 2016, the Group worked with WWF to update its water risk assessment and established that 15 of its breweries are situated in high-risk areas.

• Responsible drinking: The Carlsberg Group worked with more than 20 external partners to promote responsible drinking in its markets. Furthermore, the Group increased the share of volume carrying responsible drinking guiding information by 31% to a total of 85%.

• Health & safety: More than 50% of all Carlsberg Group sites were accident-free in 2016.

About sustainability in the Carlsberg Group:

The Carlsberg Group’s four sustainability priority areas are: Energy & carbon, Water, Responsible drinking and Health & safety. The same holistic approach is applied in all four areas and integrated throughout the value chain. In practice, this means embedding sustainability in existing corporate strategy and business processes, developing policies to ensure that standards are met, collaborating with partners to achieve scale, and setting measurable targets to track progress both year on year and in the longer term.

Download the report here