Find a water management program that recognizes your sustainability goals throughout production, packaging, and waste treatment.
Every brewery has one? The dripping tap. The leaking hose. Or the piece of plant that has a worn connection where water freely accumulates. Everyone's aware of it. Everyone carries on. After all, it doesn't seem that important when you have production runs, new recipe trials, scheduled cleaning, staff shortages, and only 24 hours in the day.
Water is everything in brewing. It's an industry where products typically contain 90-95% water. It's an industry that echoes with the anecdote: 90% cleaning - 10% brewing. It's an industry of many dripping taps - some real, some figurative - with water having been taken for granted. Every brewer has sustainability goals. But - with commitments culminating at a distant date it has also been convenient to just carry on.
Water is also everything for the well-being of the wider world. But now, even more so. Intensifying demands for clean drinking water, along with water scarcity, make this more urgent and intrusive. In the UN's words: Our progress on water-related goals and targets remains alarmingly off track, jeopardizing the entire sustainable development agenda.?1 A water-centric industry such as brewing is under intense scrutiny - shouldn't it be leading on sustainability? Where's the connection and renewed urgency?
Many brewers recognize the need to accelerate and broaden their scope. But many haven't moved significantly from their initial commitments - made in what feels like another world. Many lack the necessary partners or support on this journey to drive sustainability with the required scale, urgency and ambition. Or the expertise to do so throughout their operations. And remain competitive. And compliant. And profitable. Or to satisfy heightened ESG expectations.
The water management program you choose has to reflect this. A program that recognizes your sustainability goals throughout production, packaging, and waste treatment. That allows you to look at how water moves inside your plant and rethink the way you operate your water and hygiene tasks. Also, how these broader concerns apply to your reputation, your place in the local community, where your actions speak of a responsible global citizen or a water hog. Or to consumers unafraid to voice their moral concerns or product preferences, especially when: Approximately 75% of beer consumers are willing to pay premiums for beer brewed using environmentally sustainable practices.2
However, too many of these choices feature the same well-worn technologies, the same approaches, and the same outcomes. Where's the added value; the analysis that reveals hidden opportunities? An adaptable, innovative and all-encompassing water management program is as essential to your success as the will to change your approach - in some ways fundamentally and, having great products, of course.
Recognizing that dripping tap is a great metaphor for enhancing your awareness and urgently renewing your commitment. If only mending the challenges ahead were so easy.
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