HEINEKEN announces 'Drop the C' programme

HEINEKEN announces 'Drop the C' programme
Brewer sets new ambition to reduce carbon emissions 

Amsterdam, 12 February 2018 - HEINEKEN today announced its 'Drop the C' programme for renewable energy. With 'Drop the C' the company aims to grow its share of renewable thermal energy and electricity in production from the current level of 14% to 70% by 2030. HEINEKEN wants to drive a real change towards renewable energy and will therefore not purchase unbundled certificates to meet its reduction targets. In addition, new emission goals will be set for distribution and cooling and, for the first time, also for packaging. The brewer commits to set science based targets for these areas in the next two years.

Since 2008 carbon emissions at HEINEKEN breweries have decreased by 41%^[1] and in 2017 the company has already reached its 2020 emission targets in production.

Jean-François van Boxmeer, Chairman of the Executive Board/CEO of HEINEKEN commented:
"With all the good progress made in reducing our CO₂ emissions, now is the right time to set ourselves new targets. When I visit our breweries I want to see that we are brewing with real green energy and that we are not achieving our reduction targets by buying unbundled certificates."

"Beyond production, distribution and cooling, we are also going to take a close look at our packaging, because it represents a significant portion of our carbon footprint. Packaging is an area where reductions will be harder to achieve because we simply cannot do this alone. We invite our business partners and others to work with us to reduce emissions across our business," concluded Jean-François van Boxmeer who recently joined the CEO Climate Leadership Initiative at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Targets to reduce carbon emissions in production
HEINEKEN commits to increase its share of renewable energy in production from 14% today (renewable thermal energy and electricity combined) to 70% by 2030. This implies an 80% reduction target in carbon emissions^[2] compared to the 2008 base year. During 2017 numerous projects have already been identified worldwide that will contribute to achieving the 2030 ambition. The targets will be externally verified by the Science Based Targets initiative.