Build Magazine December 2015

Build Magazine 22 Richard McCann raises a glass to their success and investigates and how other sectors are now implementing the methodology. The British Beer & Pub Association has repre- sented Britain’s brewers and pub companies since its foundation as the Brewers’ Society back in 1904, and its members account for some 90% of beer brewed in Britain today, and around half of the nation’s pubs. Mem- bers are diverse - from international brewers to the nation’s largest tenanted pub companies and historic family brewers. This diversity of membership enables the BBPA to speak up for an industry which contributes a million jobs and £21.4bn to the economy. Energy efficiency has long been important to the brewing and pub trade. The Associ- ation became a pioneer when it first started collecting members’ energy data in the wake of the OAPEC energy crisis when the price of oil quadrupled in weeks during 1974. But undoubtedly the big change kicked off in 1999/2000 when the industry started prepar- ing for the introduction of the 2001 Climate Change Levy which ushered in a new world of energy taxes for the first time. The BBPA responded positively to government’s decision to introduce Climate Change Agreements, by devising early methodology to monitor energy use and efficiency. 2002 was the first time most manufacturing industries were formalised into a government scheme, and by 2004 collection of energy data had become critical and the Association appointed David Sheen as Policy Manager, Economy and Environment. Carrots and sticks “We were quite narrow in our focus at that time in terms of the manufacturing process,” remembers David. “Carbon footprinting was only on the periphery a decade ago. So we were focussed on the production facility. It’s the most measurable and it’s where the biggest savings could be made. But of course audit is now spread more widely across the supply chain.” At this stage the agreement between govern- ment and the industry was voluntary, with a ‘carrot’ of significant tax discounts on climate change levy as an incentive to get involved. “But over the decade EU emissions trading schemes have started to become more puni- tive and schemes such as carbon reduction commitment have come along,” says David, “and that is pure ‘big stick – no carrot. In terms of climate change agreements, “you’re currently looking at discounts of around £4m a year across the brewing sector,” explains David. “A decade ago that was maybe £7m because companies were using more energy. The tax rate has gone up but the level of energy use has gone down.” Watershed The industry encountered a watershed in 2010 with the Industry Energy Efficiency Accelerator programme. This was the end of the first phase of climate change agreements, and the Association immedi- ately applied to take part on behalf of its members. If phase one was about taking the obvious steps towards efficiency then phase two heralded a step change in assessing what technologies the industry could use to make some big bites into a brewery’s energy use. Rather like an action movie trailer bel- lows: ‘They’re Back – and This Time it’s Serious!’ the BBPA realised the need for outside expertise and called in Will Todd, a boffin contracted by the Carbon Trust who became managing director of con- sultancy Carbon Architecture. “This was the first time we’d had a sector-wide en- ergy balance calculation,” remembered David. “Every year we fed the data we’d collected back to our members so they could compare their own results against the industry average and their peers. This was the first step to benchmarking and promoting technology throughout the membership and we followed up with in- depth looks at three or four of our biggest member companies.” Then, in 2011, government came to the Association and announced a new scheme starting in 2013 with a new targets for the brewing sector of a 19.1% energy efficiency saving! “That was a huge figure,” says David, “many breweries are in historic buildings, and in even the most modern brewhouse there’s only so much of the process you can change without affecting the beer!” The BBPA convinced government to con- sider any evidence that disproved their assessment so Will Todd and his team, on behalf of the Association’s members, Britain’s Brewers Mark a 10-year Milestone in Ener- gy Management