Grolsch took another major step towards becoming a CO2-neutral brewery by signing a heat supply contract with Twence, a regional supplier of sustainable energy. Twence will supply Grolsch with fully green heat, reducing CO2 emissions from Grolsch’s natural gas usage by 72% (5,500 tonnes) per year from 2022 onwards. This is equal to the amount of CO2 emitted by 1800 households on average per year.
With a heat supply from Twence to Grolsch, more energy can be made available to the brewery’s industrial processes. It will be used to heat the pasteurizers, rinsing machines and to heat the buildings. This reduces both natural gas consumption and CO2 emissions.
The heat will be supplied to via an underground pipeline. The technical challenges and route study will be further specified in 2020 and the aim is to start construction in 2021 and completion by mid-2022. This will enable the brewery to fully transition from using gas-fired boilers to the heat supplied entirely sustainably from Twence.
A few years ago Grolsch set the enormously challenging goal of having a fully CO2-neutral brewery by 2025 and has since 1 January 2020 been using 100% green electricity, representing a reduction of CO2 emissions by 6,700 tonnes.