Beer firm brewing greener future amid nation's sustainable push

Budweiser China eyes higher-standard green goals driven by the country's green push, said its executive.

The China unit of Budweiser APAC, a subsidiary of Belgium-based beer brewer AB InBev, announced recently that it has achieved its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 25 percent across the entire value chain by the end of last year, two years ahead of schedule.

"Although we already reached the goal at the end of last year, we're not stopping there. We will continue because we've got an ambition to go to net zero across our value chain, not just our own breweries, but across the entire chain by 2040," said Jan Clysner, vice-president of sustainability and procurement at Budweiser APAC.

Currently, Budweiser China has achieved pure renewable electricity brewing in 10 breweries. Additionally, 14 plants have adopted solar panels for electricity generation, with a total annual electricity generation of 36 million kilowatt-hours in 2023, said the company.

For example, the company's brewery in Ziyang, Sichuan province, installed the industry's first hydropower electric boiler last year, coupled with a thermal storage system to achieve cost efficiency through peak-valley electricity pricing. The project is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 7,000 metric tons.

"If you look at our China breweries together, the total purchased energy is probably the lowest if we compare it to that with any of other breweries within the AB InBev network," Clysner said, adding that the model of digitalized high-tech breweries in China may be brought to other markets in the future to reduce energy consumption.

"What we see in China is that it is moving very fast, especially with the dual carbon goals, which really triggered a lot of changes and has made things move forward very fast," he said.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of AB InBev's presence in China. Clysner said, "Looking back, I think the 40 years' development in China has been a tremendous growth story for us as a company, and we are here to continue that growth.

"We believe that there is a big opportunity in what we call premiumization, and we see really a lot of opportunities to keep on growing there."