Solenis Recognizes HEINEKEN as 2023 Sustainability Award Winner

WILMINGTON, Del. (USA) – Solenis LLC, a leading global producer of specialty chemicals, is proud to announce that HEINEKEN is among the winners of a 2023 Solenis Sustainability Award. The global company, which operates 167 breweries and sells its beers and ciders to consumers in 190 countries, is being recognized for a portfolio of conservation projects estimated to achieve a 6 percent reduction in average water intake across 10 breweries when implemented. This estimated reduction equates to 2,936,100 cubic meters of water.

The projects are managed by team members from Diversey, a Solenis company, which supplies solutions to nearly 60 HEINEKEN breweries and has been a key collaborator in the beermaker’s sustainability initiatives. The initiatives support Towards Healthy Watersheds, a HEINEKEN 2030 strategy that aims to have a positive water impact by combining efficient water use and wastewater management in global operations, as well as water balancing in water-stressed areas. HEINEKEN has sustainability goals in place to reduce its water ratio to a value of 2.6 hl/hl in the breweries located in water-stressed areas and 2.9 hl/hl for the rest by 2030. The hl/hl ratio is a standard metric for the industry, measuring the hectoliters of water required to make a hectoliter of beer.

Diversey has been working with HEINEKEN to implement a broad range of water conservation projects at all of the breweries where Diversey is the incumbent supplier. Many of those projects emerged from Diversey’s AquaCheck program, a clear, structured process that identifies and prioritizes improvement actions targeting water usage and water waste. An important part of the program is ongoing collaboration involving local-regional teams, as well as global oversight and management teams, at both organizations.

According to Ginés Cerdán, Global Corporate Director at Diversey, implementing AquaCheck is impossible without a strong partnership. “AquaCheck is a systematic approach that can be used at any water-intensive operation, and the recommendations and actions emerging from the process are customized to a site’s unique needs and challenges. That’s why it’s so critical that Diversey professionals work hand-in-hand with local teams to understand that site’s historical data and water consumption demands. HEINEKEN fully embraced the AquaCheck process from the top down, and every brewery was transparent, cooperative, and willing to explore a range of solutions.”

To get to these solutions, AquaCheck follows a proprietary three-step process. First, the team analyzes historical data to establish a baseline against which performance can be compared. Next, the team measures water consumption at a site to identify opportunities for water savings. These opportunities are prioritized to produce a concrete set of actions outlined in a report. Finally, during the implementation phase, the team takes the recommended actions and measures results against the baseline.

Diversey is currently in the implementation phase at 10 HEINEKEN breweries — seven in Africa and three in Brazil. At 10 other breweries — five in Africa, one in Brazil, three in India, and one in Europe — Diversey is just beginning or about to begin the AquaCheck process. Taken together, the AquaCheck program has identified 272 water savings projects affecting 2,936,100 cubic meters of water. When implemented, the projects are expected to reduce HEINEKEN’s average water intake across those sites from 3.66 hl/hl to 3.45 hl/hl. That’s a reduction of 0.21 hl/hl, which is 6 percent versus the starting point.

For HEINEKEN, these results are a step in the right direction and show incremental progress toward the ambitious goal of moving its water ratio value below 3.0 hl/hl. The two teams — HEINEKEN and Diversey/Solenis — will continue their collaboration to drive more value out of these water conservation projects.

Solenis established the Sustainability Awards in 2020 to recognize projects that deliver reduced water use, reduced energy consumption, decreased greenhouse gas emissions, optimized raw material utilization or reduced waste. Read more about the awards and winning projects on Solenis.com.