Heineken Netherlands’ is ramping up its sustainability efforts to become fully circular by 2030 with a move that’s seen all Heineken beer for the Dutch market being brewed using 100 percent green energy since July. 

Since 2010, the brewer has been working on its global sustainable ambition “Brewing a Better World” by, among other things, reducing the CO2 emissions of the breweries. Wind turbines and large quantities of solar panels have been installed in line with this target. 

In addition, the use of biogas started in 2018, which is now fully operational. As a result, since last month, all Heineken beer for the Dutch market has been brewed completely green.

“With our global ‘Brewing a Better World’ program, we are making the chain and our products sustainable step by step. Our ultimate goal is to be fully circular in the Netherlands by 2030 with breweries that are completely climate neutral,” says Hans Bohm, Managing Director for Heineken Netherlands. 

“Recently, we have been able to take many great steps, including further scaling up biogas and solar energy. This applies to all product and packaging variants covered by the Heineken brand in the Dutch market, including Heineken 0.0.”

Beer made of hops, yeast, water, wind and sun
Both the thermal and the electrical energy used in the brewery’s beer production and the packaging lines for all Heineken beer for Dutch consumers is sustainably generated. This amounts to around three million hectolitres of beer per year. The green energy consists of solar energy, wind energy and biogas from waste purification. 

Biogas is produced from the waste water of the breweries in Zoeterwoude and Den Bosch and supplemented with biogas from the waste purification of the Aa Water Authority and Maas. 

“We consider green energy to be an indispensable new ingredient in our Heineken beer. Wind and sun are just as important as hops, water and yeast. The use of sustainable energy literally makes Heineken even greener. But our ambition goes further. The next step is to make our packaging materials more sustainable in the short term and to further close the material cycle in the Netherlands,” adds Bohm.