GREEN PROFILE: Leader in the green field

With a farsighted approach and an environmentally sound philosophy, Adnams is a model of green best business practice. Alexis Hercules examines its exemplary approach

In 1872, George and Ernest Adnams bought the Sole Bay Brewery in Southwold on the Suffolk coast with the help of their father. One hundred and thirty-six years later, this medium-sized brewer is a global example of leading innovative green and ethical business practices. Beating off competition from the likes of 3M, GlaxoSmithKline, Nestlé and Diageo, Adnams took home the Business in the Community UK Eco-Efficiency Award in 2008, adding to an impressive haul of accolades from the previous year, including National Business Award for Corporate Social Responsibility, The Carbon Trust Innovator of the Year, and The GoodCorporation Ethical Business Award.

But what has Adnams put into practice that has made it such a leader in the field? Aside from its intuitive day-to-day thinking, the most striking developments have been: a new eco-friendly distribution centre; a groundbreaking brewery which has an Energy Recovery System that recycles 100% of the steam created during the brewing process and uses it to heat 90% of the following brew; East Green – the UK’s first carbon neutral beer, which evolved from an idea to the shelf in just 12 weeks; and the lightest 500ml beer bottle on the market, which reduces Adnams glass usage by 624 tonnes per annum.

The distribution centre is likely to be one of the first industrial buildings to attain a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) “excellent” rating, which is the highest standard of environmental performance in building design. The site is a former gravel pit that has been restored via a nature conservation scheme. Much of the development is shielded from view and there is natural thermal stability provided by the fact that it is sunk beneath normal ground level.

However, the really clever aspects are in the construction itself. All the walls are built from Hempcrete, blocks made of lime, quarry waste and hemp. The manufacturing process uses less energy than for conventional concrete blocks and the materials are UK sourced. The blocks also have considerable environmental benefits, including outstanding thermal performance, excellent sound insulation and carbon sequestration.

Glulam (glued and laminated) timber beams support the biggest green roof in Britain, made of sedum to enhance the setting and promote biodiversity within the site. The roof will also provide a massive rainwater catchment area, allowing Adnams to harvest most of the water it needs to use. There is also Golpla reinforced turf to minimise the area of concrete, and ensure the car-parking areas blend in with the adjacent grassland.

Master plan
Adnams managing director Andy Wood has been with the company since 1994, and he has been intimately involved with its development since the day he arrived. But what was the thinking behind reconfiguring the business with the environment at its centre?

“We had the idea quite a long time ago. In 1997 the board and the senior management team defined a set of organisational values, a code by which we could go to market, deal with our suppliers, our staff and a broader set of stakeholders. One of those values was a concern for the environment, both the natural environment and the built environment.

“But we didn’t want these concerns to merely become slogans, or words written on a page, or posters on a wall. We were determined to walk the walk and talk the talk.

“Between 2000 and 2004 we enjoyed a growth spurt in our business. At that time we had a distribution centre in the middle of town and we were receiving up to 50 heavy goods vehicles a day. Southwold is a small seaside town and we were shaking it to the foundations. We have an excellent relationship with the local community, and our own sense of responsibility to that community, combined with the growth in our business, meant that we needed to move. We purchased the disused gravel works in 1996-97, and acquired a 10-year planning permission window for its development, knowing that at some point we would have to activate a plan that probably meant moving our business, either in part or in its entirety, out to that new site.

“I think it’s fair to say we didn’t decide absolutely all the environmental features that we were going to build back in 1997, and indeed the science and the technology that was available then was very different to that which was available in 2004-2005 when we actually implemented the project.”

It would appear that, with much of the world today concerned about its carbon emissions and the looming energy crisis, Adnams was rather prescient in its actions.

“I would love to say that we had the foresight to see the rising energy crisis, but I would be being a bit disingenuous to be perfectly honest. But, it is fair to say that we saw that government policy would move in the direction that ‘polluter pays’, and I think that policy is going to continue with the onset of climate change.

“Rising energy prices do mean that our cost-benefit analysis comes into sharper focus, and the move will pay back sooner than we anticipated. The aspects that we’ve adopted at this facility are, in some cases, 50% per m² more efficient than the site that we vacated.”

So there must now be a lot of interest in the Adnams model, and its state-of-the-art distribution centre in particular.

“We’ve had everybody here, from Tesco and Morrisons to GlaxoSmithKline and Royal Mail, they have all come and had a look at what we’ve done. We’ve also had a lot of interest from the architectural community.

Sense of pride
“I’m enormously proud of Adnams and the reputation that it has created for itself while winning various awards. I’m also proud of the integrated nature in which we approached this, so it’s not just the warehouse as one standalone building, we’ve also improved our brewery, where we’ve got our ratio for water used per pint of beer down to 3.1 pints of water to a pint of beer. That compares to an industry average of eight pints of water.

“Those are the big, high-profile things, but I’m equally proud of the very small things our staff and our teams are doing day to day. In many respects, those are as powerful as the big, capital expenditure, statement projects.”

Having a close-knit team with a defined, collective ethic, pulling in the same direction, is also part of the Adnams plan. “I think with the difficult economic climate it is good to have a strong team that all actually believe in a set of values and where we can take this business, and over the long term deliver real value for shareholders and the wider group of stakeholders. Ultimately we’ve got a really strong machine here that’s working well.

“We’ve managed to create a culture where people are very aware of environmental issues, both in their daily lives and in the workplace, and there are lots of ideas bubbling up to make us more environmentally friendly and efficient.”

After such a big investment and concentration on environmental development, can there be any more to come?

“Things are complete for the time being. We’ve completed our investment and now the focus of the organisation is making sure we get a return on that investment. That is very important for our shareholders because we’re not just doing this for altruistic reasons; we’re doing this because it makes good business sense as well.

“But we’ll always look for improvements wherever we are and opportunities to improve. We’re certainly not resting on
our laurels.” 

db © August 2008