2011 was a defining year for the Carlsberg Group in terms of driving, accelerating and embedding its eight CSR areas across its operations around the world. This was recognised by the fact that Carlsberg was included in the top five of the 2011 Newsweek Green ranking for its respective category, scoring highest among global brewers in terms of environmental management and footprint.

Carlsberg’s eight CSR areas are: Environment, Health & Safety, Labour & Human Rights, Business Ethics, Marketing Communication, Community Engagement, Responsible Drinking and Responsible Sourcing. Last year Carlsberg succeeded in cutting its energy consumption by 9.3%, water consumption by 5.6% and CO2 emissions by 8.3%.

“We are pleased with the progress we are making in terms of integrating CSR throughout the value chain. We understand that our long term success depends not only on growing, but growing responsibly,” comments Janda Campos, vice-president corporate social responsibility and public affairs at Carlsberg Group. “2011 saw us reach some significant milestones across many of our local markets. One that stands out is in Russia, where our largest operation, Baltika Breweries, achieved an 18% reduction in specific energy in the St Petersburg brewery as a result of us introducing a programme targeting reduction of losses in steam supply lines and heat recovery.”

Other important developments for the Carlsberg Group in 2011 included the investment in a waste water recovery plant for its Hyderabad Brewery in India where the expected annual savings on water from the plant is expected to be 585,000hl. Improved performance was also achieved in Carlsberg’s Brewery in Huizhou (Guangdongprovince), China where the brewer reduced CO2 emissions by around 35% by the introduction of steam from boilers that are powered by biomass.

He continues: “While Carlsberg can take certain steps to reduce its carbon footprint, it is clear that a large proportion of our products’ carbon footprint is related to the production of products bought from suppliers such as packaging. In early 2011, in order to get better visibility on how to reduce the overall carbon footprint, our UK business introduced the Carlsberg Environmental Community and invited some of its biggest suppliers to join the Community, and work in partnership on ways to reduce carbon in the supply chain. The results are already impressive with Carlsberg UK achieving a 22% reduction in carbon emissions in 2011, compared to the previous year. The Carlsberg Environmental Community is a pilot programme for the Carlsberg Group.”

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Coca-Cola Hellenic, one of Europe’s leading bottlers of non-alcoholic beverages, has further strengthened the rigorous reporting and verification of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities across operations in 28 countries. Coca-Cola Hellenic is the first European food and beverage company to reach an ‘A+’ rating, according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) for its CSR report.

Its just published 2010 CSR report, ‘Towards Sustainability’, has been reviewed by an external Stakeholder Review Panel which provided input and a critical assessment of the report’s strengths and improvement opportunities. In addition, the company stated that the auditor denkstatt carried out an independent third-party validation of the contents in accordance with the international standards AA1000 (2008) and GRI (Global Reporting Initiative).

Among initiatives reported by Coca-Cola Hellenic are -increased efforts to combat climate change. Beyond the construction of three Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants during the year, which will reduce CO2 emissions by up to 66% at each facility, the company has now launched a programme to install solar panels on rooftops.

Energy-saving activities also involve improving efficiency of power use in bottling operations, transportation, and cold drink equipment which is progressively being replaced with models which are free of HFCs and are up to 63% more energy-efficient than previous coolers, substantially cutting CO2 emissions.

Another primary environmental focus is protection of water resources. More than 97% of wastewater was treated at bottling plants in 2010, and systems put in place enabled the re-use and recycling of 1.2 billion litres of water in production processes.

Coca-Cola Hellenic is one of the world’s largest bottlers of products of The Coca-Cola Company with sales of more than two billion unit cases, and 560 million customers buying its products annually.