Abstract
Benchmarks are often used to assist brewers in identifying improvement opportunities; but a comparison of water and energy performances in breweries is deficient without normalising for differences between facilities. The normalisation of water and energy use was subsequently investigated, using SABMiller breweries as a case study. Drivers of water, electricity, and thermal energy usage obtained from the literature were selected, rationalised, and ranked in a Delphi survey of industry experts, and correlated with data from 64 SABMiller sites. The main drivers identified, and the data from 58 SABMiller sites, were then used to develop multi-variable linear regression (MVLR) models. The models, tested with data from six separate SABMiller sites, were able to predict water, electrical, and thermal energy usage to within a seven per cent error. By eliminating the variability in drivers within the control of brewery staff, the MVLR models were used to normalise the performance indices, and enabled direct comparisons between plants.
Highlights
The rise in demand for, and cost of, resources is increasing the brewing sector’s risk from a sustainability perspective [1]
Surveys in the brewing industry confirm that the brewing community is rapidly improving its specific water and energy usages, and that the rate of improvements made in the top-performing plants is similar to the sector average, as identified by BBPA [3], BIER [4], and Campden BRI [5]
The literature review revealed that many variables are deemed to influence performance, but that there is generally poor consensus on the main drivers to consider
Summary
The rise in demand for, and cost of, resources is increasing the brewing sector’s risk from a sustainability perspective [1]. Surveys in the brewing industry confirm that the brewing community is rapidly improving its specific water and energy usages, and that the rate of improvements made in the top-performing plants is similar to the sector average, as identified by BBPA [3], BIER [4], and Campden BRI [5]. Benchmarks are often used to assist brewers in identifying improvement opportunities; but comparisons of water and energy performances in breweries are deficient without normalising for differences between plants. Published benchmarks are often not normalised for differences between plants, but instead are given in ranges (NRC [7], EBC [8], WBG [9]), making them difficult to use when determining improvement opportunities
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