Angela Resch
Environmental organisations have been pressing Heineken to find
ways of reducing the amount of natural resources used in the brew
ing process and the emissions it produces. Because the company's
two breweries in Switzerland, one in Winterthur and one in Chur,
were small, they were less efficient and used a lot more fossil fuel
and other resources to brew each hectolitre of beer.
DRIVING TWICE THE DISTANCE ON THE SAME FUEL: HEINEKEN'S ACHIEVEMENT IN CHUR
2005 wmÊmKmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
2004 wmmmmmmmmmmmm
To increase efficiency, Heineken decided to
combine the capacity of these two breweries
at a single location. The decision to shut down
a brewery is not an easy one, because every
brewery has its own history and occupies a
place in the hearts and minds of the local
people. It's an emotionally charged decision
and needs solid justification for it to be
accepted. In this case, there were several
reasons which prompted Heineken's decision
to end production in Winterthur and move it
to the new brewery in Chur. And the efficien
cy gains are considerable. The new Heineken
brewery uses 43 percent less fossil fuel,
24 percent less electricity and 19 percent
less water to produce 810,000 hectolitres of
beer a year, which is 8.5 percent more than
the two old breweries combined. The secret
lies in the technology used to reduce and
recycle the steam generated by the produc
tion process.
'We need less fuel because we produce less
steam, and the steam we do produce is
reused in the process,'says Angela Resch,
Environmental Coordinator at Heineken
Switzerland, who is responsible for its ongo
ing water and energy saving programmes.
As well as advances in technology and
economies of scale, there's also human effort
underlying the energy savings, according
to Angela Resch. She heads a working group
called ZEUS, which is researching ways of
reducing the use of resources within the
context of Heineken's Aware of Water and
Aware of Energy programmes. Through the
work of ZEUS, the brewery has started to
recycle waste water for cooling other facili
ties at the plant. It has also prompted the
brewery to carry out periodic checks on
energy consumption and make adjustments
where necessary because, left to its own
devices, the equipment tends gradually to
use more energy. These may be relatively
minor measures that employees are taking
the trouble to include in their daily work,
but they have a significant effect.
'Applying energy-awareness is difficult: it
comes on top of doing your normal job,' says
Angela Resch. 'I'm proud to be part of a team
that, as well as their day-to-day work, also
keep up with ZEUS's improvement efforts.'
Specific thermal energy consumption breweries
performance of Heineken world-wide, in MJ/hl beer
2006
2004 -mmmmm
2003
2002
2001
116
117
111
Specific electricity consumption breweries
performance of Heineken world-wide, in MJ/hl beer
2006
2005
2003
2002
2001
target
actual
target
actual
19