Utopian Release full Scope 1,2 & 3 Carbon Audit and announce path to Net Zero

Devon’s Utopian Brewing have used their 4th Anniversary today to release their first full carbon audit covering all of their Scope 1,2 and 3 emissions, using BIER and GHG protocol Guidelines. The company has also announced that it has applied to join the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi) for Green House Gas (GHG) emission reduction.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE

Releasing the report co-founder and Managing Director Richard Archer said “Creating a sustainable business was in our core values right from the very start but today marks a very important landmark in the development of our longer term goal of reducing our Green House Gas emissions and ultimately becoming a net zero brewery. We now have a benchmark to measure ourselves against and have a number of major investments in progress that will deliver significant reduction in our emissions in the short term. These first initiatives are predicted to make annual reductions of over 40 tonnes CO2e per year more than 10% of our total in 2022.

The application to join SBTi, subject to approval, will provide the company with a clearly defined path to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement –pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. Being a part of the initiative will also provide an essential auditable framework to track progress against targets and to continuously announce and report on our progress to stakeholders.”

Utopian’s Carbon Audit Report was researched and produced by Samuel Ticehurst who the company had first met whilst he was completing his MSc thesis “Creating Sustainable Value in the UK Craft-brewing Industry” at Bath University. Richard was impressed with the work and Samuel’s passion for both GHG reduction and the brewing sector. It also highlighted that whilst many of the smaller craft and independent breweries were making positive noises around carbon emission reduction there seemed to be limited tangible progress.

Richard Archer found this situation concerning and so it became the driver to quickly ‘up the ante’ at Utopian, starting with the commissioning of this full Scope 1, 2 and 3 Audit. The results, published today, will place much more focus on the practical steps now needed to meet the companies GHG emission goals and also provides the catalyst to join the small band of sustainability pioneers in the craft beer industry.

THE HISTORY

At its inception Utopian invested in a number of key technologies to reinforce its commitment to brewing sustainably. The company’s decision to only brew with British grown ingredients was driven entirely by a desire to reduce food miles. The company installed nitrogen generation to reduce CO2 use in the brewery, lit the brewhouse with movement sensing LED lighting and installed large heat exchangers to recover the bulk of the heat energy from the Wort (pre fermented beer) post the boil phase to re stock the hot liquor tank for the next brew.

On the packaging front the company uses no single use plastic and over 95% of the cartons used are made from FSC approved card all of which have had a positive impact on emissions. However it was clear that there was much more to be done and this was why it was essential to Archer that a full scope 1,2 ad 3 audit was completed as quickly as practical.

Many companies are currently only measuring and reporting on Scope 1 and 2 emissions. The importance of measuring Scope 3 emissions, however, is well explained by the Carbon Trust. Further information on the importance of Scope 3 can be found on the carbon trust site HERE.

As Archer says “Measuring the amount of gas and electricity you use in the brewhouse and petrol in your delivery vans (scopes 1 and 2) and looking at how to reduce them is clearly important. But in all business, and from our results particularly in breweries, it’s the Scope 3 indirect emissions where the largest amount of the carbon footprint comes from so it is essential to focus on those if you want to make real progress towards net zero.”

The full Carbon Audit report can be found HERE but in summary Utopian produced 386 tonnes CO2e in its fiscal year 2021-2022 broken down as follows :

Disposal, Reuse & Recycling 2.631 tonnes CO2e 0.69%, Transport & Distribution 22.291 tonnes CO2e 5.82%, Cultivation 33.746 tonnes CO2e 8.81%,Packaging and Material Production 56.509 tonnes CO2e 14.76%, Retail & Consumption - Refrigeration 72.371 tonnes CO2e 18.90%, Materials 76.213 tonnes CO2e 19.90%, Beverage Production & Warehousing 119.206 tonnes CO2e 31.13%.

Looking at this in terms of litres of production this equates to 199g/litre of CO2e for scopes 1 and 2 combined and 640g CO2e / Litre for Scope 1,2,3 emissions combined.

The scope 3 emissions at 69% provide both the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for reductions as this is the area that includes amongst other things, ingredients, 3rd party transportation and purchased CO2.

THE FUTURE

As mentioned previously the company has two major investments currently nearing completion that will make a positive and immediate impact on reducing emissions. Currently the company has no access to mains drainage so has needed to tanker waste-water away for off site processing. An expensive and high CO2 impact process. The first stage of its waste water processing system has arrived on site this week with completion expected in April. This 6 figure sum investment is predicted to save over 7 tonnes CO2e per annum once the final stage is completed. It will also contribute significant cost saving. The second major project is for CO2 capture from the fermentation tanks in the brewery. Until recently not available at smaller scale Danish firm Dalum have developed technology to capture and clean the CO2 generated in fermentation. Utopian’s unit is ordered and scheduled for delivery in April 2023. The estimates are that this will make the company completely self sufficient in CO2 and the calculated emissions savings from this initiative is predicted to be over 34 tonnes CO2e per annum

Commenting on these initiatives Archer said “These projects are very significant capital investments for the business but as well as making a very significant contribution to reducing our emissions they will both also make significant operational cost savings. With resulting short payback periods these projects will provid genuine and tangible evidence that reducing emissions is not only good for the planet but can also be good for profitability”