Sustainable Water Utilisation in African Breweries

1
Sustainable Water Utilisation in African Breweries

• - current practices and prospects -

2
Contents

• Introduction and study background
• Summary of findings
• Conclusions
• Recommendations

3
Study background

• African BREwery sector Water savings initiative
  (ABREW) aimed at assessing the current status
  and opportunities for reducing water and
  wastewater generation in African brewery sector
  through cleaner production approach
• Sector study and framework analysis of water
  consumption in African breweries
• Focus on the situation in Ethiopia, Ghana,
  Morocco and Uganda

4
Water situation in Africa

• Access to freshwater is key condition for
  development
• Africa has abundant water resources, but
  distribution and availability varies widely
• Water policies and conservation efforts focus on
  supply-side for domestic and agricultural use
• No focus on industrial needs, in particular water
  intensive industries

5
The brewery sector

• Brewing is intrinsically water intensive industry
• Best practice technology requires approx. 4l of
  raw water for every litre of beer (specific water
  consumption)
• Water use can easily triple with old technology
• High water consumption also means higher energy
  use and more wastewater

6
The African brewery sector

• Widespread industry
• Majority profitable significant contributors to
  national economies
• 15 breweries in Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco and
  Uganda employ 6 000 workers
• Annual beer production 5.2 million hl
• Mostly privately owned, often by multinational
  parent companies

7
Water use in breweries
8
Water associated problems

• Breweries in Ghana, Morocco and Uganda compete
  for water with other industrial and domestic
  users
• In Ethiopia breweries contend with irrigation for
  crop farming
• Often minimal wastewater treatment, affecting
  receiving water bodies and threatening water
  supplies of other users
• Acute shortage of fresh water in urban centres
  and dependence of nearby rural communities on
  rivers is already source of conflict and dispute

9
Awareness on water use

• Generally low awareness of water issues
  (availability, supply, quality and pollution)
• Systematic water management is lacking
• Water awareness varies greatly among
  decision-makers, government officials and brewery
  staff, depending on training and exposure

10
Public instruments used to influence water use

• Applied in varying degree in all study countries,
  however
• only limited enforcement of legislation
• lack of capacity in government to monitor trends
• Current water and effluent charges not sufficient
  to encourage water conservation and pollution
  prevention
• As a result, national legislative and regulatory
  frameworks so far failed as key drivers for
  brewing industry to reduce water consumption or
  release of pollutants

11
Economics of water saving

• Abstraction fees and effluent release charges are
  no major cost factors to have significant
  influence on rate of water extraction and
  discharge
• Indirect costs associated with water use are
  rarely accounted for, though often much higher

12
Corporate management aspects

• EMS and external compliance with regulatory
  standards are parallel exercises in most African
  countries
• Adoption of formal EMS (e.g. ISO 14 000)
  increasing largely driven by market interest
• EMS often seen as benchmarking exercise for
  public relation purposes rather than tool for
  improving environmental performance and
  sustainability

13
Possibilities for Cleaner Production (CP) in
African breweries

• High specific water consumption clearly indicates
  some good opportunities for CP
• Combination of government, corporate and public
  pressure works well
• Results of detailed CP assessment in Uganda

14
(No Transcript)
15
Problems and hindrances for better water
management in African brewery sector

• General constraints associated with attitudes and
  institutional practice
• Study identified key constraint factors
  associated with Government and brewery industry

16
Government/policy constraints

• Existing water policies focus on water supply for
  domestic and agricultural use
• Policy instruments, e.g. water abstraction
  permits and licences, not applied effectively
• Limited information on national water use
  comparing industrial with agricultural/ domestic
  use

17
Brewery industry constraints

• Insufficient water monitoring at plant level
• Environmental control seen as issue of wastewater
  treatment, not improving production efficiency
• Limited understanding of CP approach
• Management focuses on expanding output, not
  reducing production costs
• Management unaware of concomitant costs
  associated with high water use, e.g. energy
  costs, higher chemicals use, costs of pumping and
  treatment

18
Drivers for breweries to pursue improved water
management

• Environmental regulation and enforcement of
  effective legislation
• Introduction of optimal pricing for water
  extraction and discharge
• Awareness raising and compliance assistance by
  NCPC and water management authorities
• Corporate environmental policies of multinational
  parent companies
• International environmental management and
  reporting requirements

19
Recommendations

• Increase awareness raising in all stakeholder
  groups (companies, government, public) on
  national importance of improved water management
  in breweries
• Improved information on water allocation, water
  use and discharge to allow for effective
  application of government policy
• Promote CP as process enhancement tool

20
Recommendations

• Government to make better use of financial
  instruments, e.g. water abstraction and discharge
  fees
• Include water management targets explicitly into
  EMS tools
• Develop comprehensive follow-up programme to
  ensure more focussed and prolonged CP outreach to
  brewery sector and promote public-private
  partnership on water utilisation in African
  breweries

21
Acknowledgements

• Thank you to
• African Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and
  Production (ARSCP)
• Pollution Research Group of Kwazulu Natal
• Uganda Water Resource Management Department
  (WRMD)
• Danbrew

• Study prepared by African Roundtable on
  Sustainable Consumption and Production (ARSCP)
  through the National Cleaner Production Centres
  (NCPCs) in Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco and Uganda
• Danida provided financial support to undertake
  study