Viewpoint
UNSUNG HEROES Taming 2020, Meeting Targets
LION CEO JAMES BRINDLEY SPOKE TO DRINKS TRADE’S ASH PINI ABOUT THE UNSUNG HEROES OF OUR INDUSTRY, LION’S CARBON NEUTRAL GOALS, NEW BRANDS AND THE CLOSURE OF THE WEST END BREWERY IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
What is your view of the current trading conditions and how are you and your team meeting the challenges? It has certainly been a year of unique challenges for Lion. We remain focused on supporting our customers as they continue to recover from this year, and in particular as they navigate the continued restricted trading conditions going into the busy summer months. How have your team become involved and where are you seeing the greatest benefits of that work? I think some of the great unsung heroes are the teams in our breweries around Australia, who have kept the beer flowing all year, and our draught quality team who have worked extremely hard to keep draught systems in venues in good working order to pour the freshest and best tasting beer on tap. What changes have you put in place to keep your team safe and continue to meet the needs of your customers? Fortunately we are starting to see a return to more normal working conditions across Australia, particularly as a result of the most recent relaxation of restrictions in Victoria. The team down there have shown incredible resilience over recent months, particularly as the rest of Australia started to open up again. I know our sales team is particularly excited to be back out in trade visiting customers. In our supply chain, we implemented a range of additional health and safety measures to protect our brewery teams and brewing facilities too.
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What is Lions focus with becoming carbon neutral and developing your sustainability model? Are you on track to meeting the 2025 carbon neutral goal? Action on climate change is a key pillar of Lion’s sustainability strategy. In 2015, we set ourselves the ambitious target of reducing our carbon footprint by 30 per cent by 2025 from a 2015 baseline and in doing so established a ‘whole brewery’ carbon reduction approach across our Australian operations. To date Lion has achieved a 28% reduction with a significant contribution from a 100% renewable power purchase agreement (PPA) that commenced in NSW, with our Tooheys Brewery in Lidcombe as an anchor in 2020. Progress towards meeting this target will be assisted by our
commitment to using 100% renewable electricity across all our Australian operations by 2025. We continue to identify opportunities for carbon emission reduction through energy efficiency initiatives, biogas utilisation, rooftop solar, renewable electricity power purchase agreements (PPAs) through to providing brewers grain to reduce livestock emissions. In 2019, we completed a $100,000 water stewardship study to further understand climate risks in our breweries and raw material supply. In early 2020, despite being in the midst of a global pandemic, we became Australia’s first large-scale carbon neutral brewer with strategic carbon offset projects that also deliver shared value and co-benefits to the community. Tasman Environmental Markets, Australia’s largest buyer of carbon offsets is providing Lion with a portfolio of verified projects to offset its remaining organisational carbon footprint across its Australian business. Lion is focusing on carbon offset projects that protect vital habitat and food sources for native wildlife including fire management in Arnhem Land Northern Territory, forest regeneration in NSW and forest conservation in New Zealand. We recognise that to accelerate action on climate change requires partnerships and actively communicates its environmental commitments and performance with customers and suppliers to encourage its value chain to adopt similar aggressive targets and action on climate change.
