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

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Heineken - Milieuverslag | 2004 | | pagina 26