Green

There are still roughly 200 days to St. Patrick’s Day, but Anheuser-Busch is focusing on a different kind of “green” beer: the environmental kind.  In an press release from July, Anheuser-Bush declared “More than five billion 12-oz. servings of beer – or about one in seven beers brewed by Anheuser-Busch in the United States – are expected to be brewed using renewable fuel by the end of 2009*, thanks to environmental efforts at the company’s 12 U.S. breweries.”  (The asterisk refers readers to the calculation method used by the international brewing company to arrive at its one in seven beer ratio.)  Is it all hype or could the mega-brewer from Missouri actually mean to turn a new, more environmentally conscious, leaf?
 
The energy goals will implement two methods that are currently in limited use at other Anheuser-Busch sites:  BERS and biogas.  This is not the unfortunate result of a keg party featuring home-made chili.  BERS stands for bio-energy recovery system.  The biogas portion is the natural gas that is produced from a local landfill’s decomposing mass.  The Anheuser-Busch project harnesses the stored energy in wastebeer to fuel a biogas powered burner.  Anheuser-Busch predicts that 70% of its Houston plant’s energy needs will be filled using this type of system.  Other Anheuser-Busch plants across the nation will be following suit; utilizing wastebeer and alternative fuel sources such as wind, solar, and biomass.
 
“We have a long history of protecting and preserving the environment, and these projects will move us closer to our goal of running our U.S. operations on 15 percent renewable fuel by 2010,” said Doug Muhleman, group vice president, Brewing Operations and Technology, Anheuser-Busch, Inc. “It’s part of our pledge to be better environmental stewards of the world we share.”
 
This dovetails nicely with the environmental policies of InBev, the Belgian based company which recently merged with Anheuser-Busch.  In a 2007 Environmental Impact study, InBev analyzed the effectiveness of its current strategies.  The highlights of this report were:

• In 2006, 97% of total waste and byproducts are reused or recycled.
• Water use per hectoliter has fallen by 3.8% since 2005, and is down 8.9% over the last three years.
• Since 2005, the amount of energy required to produce a hectoliter of product has been reduced by 16.7%, with reductions of 21.9% over the last three years.
   

InBev was able to achieve these kind of numbers by finding innovative ways to re-use existing fuel sources that payed into its normal production requirements.  A first ever in the industry initiative is going to use the rice husks normally discarded from the brewing process to become fuel sources for its brewery in South America.  In addition, InBev was able to significantly reduce its NOx and SOx emissions over the past couple of years by about 1 million and 5 million tons respectively.
 
The brewing industry has other players interested in finding ways to convert waste product into viable energy sources.  As covered in a previous Talkibie article, Coors Brewing Co. will be the sole provider of ethanol for the 2008 Democratic National Convention.  The ethanol is produced from Coors stores of wastebeer that could either be turned into ethyl alcohol base or thrown away.  Instead, Coors is converting this wastebeer into fuel for Flex-fuel vehicles that the Democratic Convention will use to transport delegates, media, and candidates to and from the convention center.
 
The way to stay ahead in business is to maximize profits and mitigate loss.  In Anheuser-Busch’s case, the environmental factor cannot be ignored.  Businesses that can find a way to turn garbage into cost effective measures to operate will win in the end.  The Anheuser-Busch plan of implementing BERS and biogas is sure to be a win-win situation for everyone.  Their new partner, InBev, also brings a strong commitment to environmental measures along with additional ideas to minimize costs by maximizing the use of company owned resources.  In addition, the public relations spin can only help create an even stronger brand image for Anheuser-Busch.  That’s something everyone can drink to.

By Alicen Hogan