Case study
Save your energy
24. Chapter 2: The brewer (continued)
Energy benchmarking in Holland
Five years ago, Jaco Bakker, Manager of Safety,
Health and Environment at Heineken's breweries in
the Netherlands, installed solar panels on the roof
of his house in Zoeterwoude to supplement his
domestic power supply. It wasn't long before he
noticed a dramatic effect on the reading on his
electricity meter.
"After some time, the dial on the meter went down
and I could see exactly how much energy I had
saved from my normal supply just by using the
solar panels," he recalls. "You could say that I do
the same thing at Heineken as part of my job, only
on a much larger scale. However, on the brewery
floor it's a real challenge to stimulate people and
show them how much energy they are helping to
save and what that means for the company and
to the environment."
One of Bakker's main jobs is to help coordinate
a growing range of energy-saving and monitoring
measures being implemented at Heineken's three
Dutch breweries. Because brewing is a complex
process that involves various production stages all
with their own systems, the breweries have set out
clear priorities and targeted specific long-term
and short-term goals to ensure his efforts are
successful.
A brewery needs energy both in the form of heat
(thermal energy) and in the form of power
(electricity). Heat is primarily needed for the boiling
of the wort and pasteurisation after filling. On the
other hand, cooling is needed during fermentation
and lagering. In this sense, efforts are focused on
the recuperation of expended heat at different
stages that can be used to power other parts of
the process.
"Sensible energy consumption has always been
important at Heineken and we were one of the first
within our industry to make a commitment to
reducing our energy consumption," says Bakker.
"What we lacked until recently, however, was an
objective international benchmark for determining
where we stand and what we should target for."
Bakker continues:Together with other Dutch
breweries, we have now developed such a
benchmark. This has proven of considerable value
to us, both on the level of Heineken in the
Netherlands and internationally, as Heineken also
uses this benchmark to assess the performance
of its other breweries."
In late 1997, the Netherlands and the European
Union (EU) committed to reducing their greenhouse
gas emissions at the Climate Conference in Kyoto
by implementing key energy-saving systems. As
part of this commitment, the Energy Efficiency
Benchmarking Covenant was signed in 1999
between the Dutch government and local business
as a voluntary agreement to be become world
leaders in terms of energy efficiency by 2012 when
the first Kyoto commitment period will be closed.
Running almost in parallel to the Covenant is the
EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, whereby energy-
intensive industries are capped at specific carbon
emission levels over a certain period. Companies
that exceed their allocated levels will be forced to
buy additional carbon credits on an open market,
making the reduction of energy a key element of
European companies' financial performance.
"These new requirements mean that it is now
vital for companies to introduce energy-saving
measures, not to mention the rising cost of energy
itself," says Bakker. "This is much more than an
environmental issue now - this is about saving
energy in order to save money and remain
competitive. Our senior managers consider this a
priority issue for the company and we're already
working hard on new measures that will be
introduced over the next few years."
Heineken N.V. - 2004/2005 Sustainability Report