Workers at a malting
house in Ethiopia
Yet while HEINEKEN is the third largest
brewer in the world, it buys less than
0.2% of the global grain production. By
working with other companies affiliated
with SAI, HEINEKEN is leveraging scale
to effect positive change. "Together with
SAI, we have developed a standard list of
questions for our farming communities
to ensure consistency and transparency
in our sustainability requirements," says
Edwin. With retail organisations set to
join SAI in the future, the supply chain
will soon be aligned from end to end.
"We finalised the HEINEKEN
Sustainability Principles and Practices
last year. With those in place, we are
now engaging with suppliers. Next year,
we have set milestones we need to hit
in order to meet our 2020 targets: 20%
of our barley, 40% of our hops and 60%
of our bittersweet apples have to come
from sustainable sources. At the moment
we're on track to reach the intermediate
targets set for 2015. Our progress so
far has been driven by the engagement
of strategic suppliers. One of our hop
suppliers has joined SAI and is leading
the further development of SAI Principles
and Practices for Hops. The German hop
industry has also taken these Principles
and Practices and will embed them in the
national standards. We are slowly seeing
momentum in the end-to-end supply
chain for the beer industry."
16 World of HEINEKEN Edition 2 2014
