Energy continued
General
Our energy performance is embedded in our environmental management and monitoring system. The aim of our performance management system is to be ranked among the leading group of beverage companies, as defined by Sustainability Asset Management (SAM) for the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). During the past few years, Heineken’s score for the environmental dimension within the research of SAM was as follows:
| Year | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 |
| Score: Environmental Dimension (DJSI) | 78% | 74% | 70% | 52% |
In 2005, we introduced the Heineken World Class Manufacturing Programme, which concentrates on all aspects of production management. Environmental performance measurement and improvement is part of this programme. Common environmental issues, such as greenhouse effect, ozone-layer depletion, acidification and nutrification, are included in five main environmental parameters, which represent the most important risks and opportunities of our production activities.
These parameters are:
- Thermal energy consumption
- Electricity consumption – reductions in energy consumption totals can help to decrease CO2 emissions and limit the effect of cost increases (for example due to CO2 emissions trading)
- Water consumption – important for reducing our dependency on the availability of water, for neutralising cost increases and for limiting the discharge of waste-water
- Discharges of waste – encourage recycling of as much of our residual materials as possible in order to prevent landfill and reduce the cost of waste discharge. The result is expressed in the quantity of non-recycled waste
- The Eco Care Indicator – a complementary parameter that incorporates environmental management, renewable energy use, air emissions, waste-water pollution prevention and high-quality recycling of by-products.
As part of our monitoring system, for every production site the performance on all five indicators is measured and plotted in a pentagon, which also shows potential improvements. All scores (except for the Eco Care Indicator which is measured annually) are monitored on a quarterly basis. Our production units take action to achieve their targets as part of their three-year plans. Internal benchmarking and the exchange of best practices help all production units to improve their performance. On each of these five performance parameters we score on a scale that ranges from ‘poor’ to ‘best in class’; then aggregate the five results to achieve one final score for our overall environmental performance.
For the whole company, our performance score shows the following pentagon:
We were able to improve all environmental parameters of which the details for energy and water are explained in the paragraphs that follow. More information about the parameters can be found on the Heineken International website.
