The Independent Brewers Association (IBA), Green Industries South Australia (GISA) and 2XE have collaborated to develop a bespoke industry tool and best practice guide that will enable IBA members to measure their energy use, boost sustainability credentials and reduce operating costs by adopting energy, water and waste efficiency improvements across their operations.
The launch of the new benchmarking tool on December 2 at 11am AEDT will include a panel from the IBA, GISA and 2XE, where members will be taken through the tool, how to interpret it and hear from sustainability experts on how it has been used to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.
“This tool has been a long time coming,” said IBA CEO Kylie Lethbridge. “Sustainability is incredibly important to our organisation and the funding provided by GISA has enabled us to develop an asset that assesses and provides evidence that aims to encourage and empower breweries to make data-driven, evidence-based decisions on process improvements, while at the same time maximising profitability. No matter the size of the brewery this tool and resource guide will assist in meeting your sustainability goals.”
IBA sustainability project lead Marthijs Heuperman, who is also Bright Brewery’s sustainability and logistics manager, said: “Deciphering patterns in your energy use data can really help in making tangible business decisions about how our breweries and venues operate. By capturing ongoing energy use data in an industry-owned platform we are not only able to build a snapshot of how we are tracking individually, but we can then also benchmark ourselves against others in the industry, hence allowing us to plan for future investment and improvements.”
IBA members will be able to access the new program via the IBA website, along with a range of resources including the best practice Sustainability Guide, a how to video, case studies and other useful links.
“Once you have entered your data, you get real time feedback. If one of your utilities is in the red zone, then you can refer to the best practice guide and see what you can do to rectify the issue,” 2XE general manager James McIntyre said.
The project was developed with the IBA Sustainability Project Group with the help of GISA through its LEAP Grant Program.
This is an edited version of a media release distributed by the IBA.