SAB Ltd, is funding water saving projects to compensate for its potential water consumption of 14 billion litres a year in South Africa. WWF (World Wildlife Fund) is facilitating the “water neutrality” process with a South African Government Project to ensure that this is not just a multinational greenwashing.
SAB Ltd is the South African subsidiary of SABMiller which is the second largest brewery in the world .
Water Neutrality
In October 2008, Dr Deon Nel, Head of the WWF Sanlam Living Waters Partnership explained
“The concept of water neutrality, based on its carbon equivalent, has been used loosely over the past years; however, until now no-one has been able to quantitatively justify these claims. We believe that our scheme is the first in the world that allows participants to truly claim to be water neutral.”
Participants will replenish water supplies, by investing in projects that quantitatively supplement water supplies equal to their water usage.
Note: Water neutrality has taken on a form in certain areas that is significantly different to the process introduced here by WWF.Water Use In Brewing
European brewers often use spring water for brewing as it is believed to be a major contributor to beer quality. In South Africa SABMiller use municipal water to run their brewing processes and achieves the quality of water it requires (no chlorine, correct mineral content, pH) through specialised water treatment.
The brewery uses mash cookers, lauter tuns and fermentation vessels to control the temperature of the brewing process which are carried out in dilute water suspensions. Water is also used to produce steam and to run cooling towers which are required to maintain the strict control on the brewing processes temperatures. However, the major use is for the cleaning of the brewery and especially the brewing vessels. Cleanliness and hygiene are paramount in a brewery – this is illustrated by the white bread test used by Mick Stewart, one of SABMillers’ great head brewers. He inspected the brewery with a loaf in hand, the unsuspecting brewer was forced to eat the bread after it had been used to swab down the dirty contact surfaces Mick found in his inspection.
The brewing industry uses an average of five litres of water in the brewery to produce one litre of beer. The need for accurate process control and strict hygiene places limits on how far the water consumption can be reduced. In 2008 SABMiller used 4.6 litres of water per litre of beer brewed and has set a goal to reduce this to 3.5 litres in by 2015.
The SAB Ltd, WWF and WfW Model
The Working for Water project started in 1995 and is administered the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. It was established to remove alien invasive species that were proven to use too much of South Africa’s limited water resources, without providing any benefit. This programme works in partnership with local communities, to whom it provides jobs, and also with government, research foundations and private companies.
Since its inception in 1995, the programme has cleared more than one million hectares of invasive alien plants, providing jobs and training to approximately 20 000 people. The programme is now able to directly link the cost of clearing alien species with the volume of water saved.
SAB Ltd is then able, with confidence, to pay the cost of saving an amount of water equal to its consumption. As well as fulfilling a commitment to water the project also favours job creation which is in line with SABMillers Corporate Social Responsibility strategy.
Photo Credit: Orin Optiglot on Flickr under a a Creative Commons license.
Great story. I’m fascinated by the many clean water initiatives taking place in Africa in recent years. I am hopeful that as these initiatives are more widely publicized, more organizations and companies will get involved in this critical issue.
JM Eagle, the world’s largest plastic pipe manufacturer, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University today announced the official completion of a new water infrastructure system that is bringing safe drinking water to more than 13,500 people in one of the poorest and most remote areas of Senegal. Begun last summer as part of the Millennium Villages Project, the new water supply network consists of almost 70 miles – or over 108 kilometers – of plastic pipe that connects to 63 villages. Additionally, more than 99 percent of the region now has easy access to water via 81 new public taps as well as 11 animal troughs.
http://www.cleanwatersenegal.com
Nice story on water neutrality. Water is an endemic problem in most African communities and a clearly defined recompense project like the one adopted by SAB would be in line with sustainable CSR.
This is the way to go.