Reduce Our Carbon Footprint

Optimising our manufacturing facilities

Conservation of energy
From 1 April 2021, 100% of the electricity across our main sites in the UK and Ireland comes from renewable sources, covering c.98% of our electricity use.

On 18 February 2022, Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment in Ireland, officially opened C&C Group’s new Sustainability Project at Clonmel Co. Tipperary. The project includes the installation of the largest rooftop solar panel farm in Ireland, which will reduce the Clonmel site’s carbon emissions by 4%, saving c.290 tonnes of CO₂ per year and almost 10,000 tonnes over the next 20 years. The solar panels also provide up to 10% of electricity used on site.

Reducing carbon emissions

We continue to develop the rigour and capability around our GHG emissions reporting. We now have a far greater understanding of our full GHG emissions footprint (Scope 1, 2 and 3) across C&C Group. A breakdown of our energy use and Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon reduction performance can be found in our Responsibility Report HERE.

Scope 3 emissions

Our Scope 3 emissions (including supply chain, customer use of our products and other indirect emissions) make up around 95% of C&C’s total emissions. We recognise our responsibility and the need to collaborate with suppliers and customers to tackle these emissions.

C&C signed up to participate in the CDP Supply Chain Screening Programme in 2021. This sees us work with c130 strategic value chain partners and request them to disclose climate-related information via CDP to allow us to use the reported data to measure supplier environmental impacts and collaborate with them to track progress of sustainability goals and/or commitments. In addition, as part of our SBTi validation, we have also committed that we will collaborate with value chain partners making up 67% of our Scope 3 emissions, to have science-based targets in place by 2026.

Streamlining our logistics operations

We recognise that our carbon footprint extends beyond manufacturing and the distribution and transport of our products also contributes to the Group’s carbon footprint. The Group has an ‘end-to-end’ supply chain model in the UK and Ireland, with c.360 vehicles in operation. Our Group-wide logistics forum sees learnings shared across C&C, allowing efficiencies to be identified and captured across every stage of the product journey to reduce delivery miles and carbon footprint.

We have completed the optimisation of our English and Scottish delivery networks, including the opening of our new depot at Newbridge in Edinburgh. This exercise has seen us consolidate volumes from three separate networks into two, bringing all of our final mile UK distribution in-house, reducing road miles and carbon emissions.

Increasing the recyclable rate for our brands and improving sustainable packaging

During FY2022, the Group met its ambitious commitment to be out of single-use plastics (shrink and hi and mid cone rings) in the packaging of our canned products, reducing the environmental impact and ecological footprint of our products. All of our canned products are now in fully recyclable cardboard, removing more than 200 million plastic rings per annum from the environment, as part of an overall plastic reduction of several hundred tonnes. The investment also recognises the future market changes including the Deposit Return Scheme (‘DRS’) introduction in Scotland, planned for August 2023, and in Ireland (date still to be confirmed).

Installation of cardboard packaging capability at Wellpark, 2021

Waste reduction

In FY2022 C&C’s main manufacturing sites at Clonmel and Wellpark again both achieved our target of sending zero waste to landfill. We continue to implement a waste hierarchy approach through prevention, reuse and recycling. As part of a Scottish Government funded initiative, Tennent’s is working with Zero Waste Scotland (‘ZWS’) and leading environmental consultancy, Eunomia, to identify further circular opportunities in our operations and to develop a pathway towards adoption and implementation of those opportunities.

Piloting alternative fuel vehicles

Electric vehicles (‘EVs’) are being trialled for deliveries in urban areas. An electric-powered van has been utilised for small-volume deliveries of Five Lamps craft beer in Dublin and a trial of electric vans has taken place at the Matthew Clark Park Royal depot, together with a hydrogenated vegetable oil (‘HVO’) diesel replacement trial at our Bedford depot. ln Scotland, we are investigating alternative fuel types for vehicles, EVs for Wellpark to Cambuslang trips and hydrogen for longer-distance inter-depot shunts.

Electric and hybrid company car options are now available to colleagues across the Group. We are installing EV charging at our five main sites, with a plan to install across our entire network by 2024.