Adnams calculates carbon footprint of bottled beer range

Adnams Brewery has become the first UK brewer to calculate the carbon footprint of its entire range of bottled beers.

The brewery has worked with the Adapt Law Carbon Group at the University of East Anglia to measure the carbon dioxide emissions for the whole lifecycle of each beer.

Calculated for the range of ten bottled beer products, Adnams and the team at UEA ensured that the calculations met the PAS 2050:2011 standard; the latest revision of the British standards document which assists organisations in the calculation of their product carbon footprints.

Ben Orchard, environmental sustainability manager at Adnams, said: “Understanding each product’s environmental impact is a complicated and intricate piece of work: it’s not as simple as just measuring electricity usage.

“Everything was considered, from growing the hops and cereal through to glass manufacture and label production. Now that we have this solid piece of ground work we can continue to produce results for all the other products made by Adnams.”

The carbon dioxide emissions of Adnams’ bottled beer range

The company’s Richard Carter added: “Adnams is fully committed to ensuring its environmental impact is a positive one and as part of this, we continually push to improve our environmental performance year-on-year. Being environmentally aware and taking action to lead the way on the green agenda is fundamental to the way Adnams operates – and has been for many years.”

The survey found that one bottle of Adnams beer is equivalent of travelling 5.3 miles on a national train service and an economy return flight from London to Sydney is the equivalent of 6,245 bottles of Adnams.