Ep 34 - How to Get To Net Zero - George Wade - Zevero

Ep 33 - How to Get to Net Zero: George Wade - Zevero

Every brewery wants to be more Sustainable — but what does it really take to get there?

In this episode, George Wade, founder of Zevero, guides us through the realities of reaching Net Zero.

From the basics of carbon neutrality to the practical steps every brewery can take, George breaks down complex sustainability challenges into actionable insights.

We dive deep into the hurdles breweries face on their journey to Net Zero, from understanding supply chain emissions to setting; and sticking to sustainability goals.

Tune in to learn:

•⁠  ⁠Defining Net Zero and its relevance for breweries 🌍
•⁠  ⁠Practical steps to reduce emissions in brewing
•⁠  ⁠Engaging your supply chain in the sustainability journey
•⁠  ⁠Overcoming measurement challenges
•⁠  ⁠Setting realistic sustainability goals for the future

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Weekend Recap
01:27 Shoutout to Gamma Brewing
02:22 Introduction to Net Zero
02:54 Guest Introduction: George Wade
03:45 Sponsor Message: SSV Limited
05:01 Discussion on Net Zero and Carbon Neutrality
18:45 Challenges and Opportunities for Craft Breweries
24:34 Practical Steps for Breweries to Achieve Net Zero
32:44 Setting and Achieving Sustainability Goals
33:33 Flexibility and Long-Term Planning
34:21 Packaging and Transportation Emissions
35:54 Engaging with the Supply Chain
36:41 Challenges in Measuring Emissions
39:34 Future Trends in Sustainability
49:07 Misconceptions About Sustainability
52:30 The Journey to Net Zero
54:45 Resources for Sustainable Brewing
58:55 The Brewing Industry as a Sustainability Leader

Thanks to this episodes sponsor - SSV Limited - Brew more. Brew better!

Links:
🔗 Bi-Weekly Positive Sustainability News
🔗 Zevero’s Sustainability Blog
🔗 Free Benchmarking Tool
🔗 George Wade on LinkedIn

Transcript

0:14

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Modern Brewer podcast with me your host Chris Lewington. Before we dive into the complex world of sustainability I want to tell you about my other weekend. I was fortunate enough to go to MASH festival in Barcelona and my lord it was fun. A proper throwback to the height of the craft beer world. Brewers, not just sales people, representing breweries, all travelling to showcase their beers in a seriously cool city. Having pre parties, after parties, hanging out all day. Honestly, it was such a vibe. I am definitely in the phase of my drinking life as I think a lot of other brewers are, where unless it's a lager or a session IPA or even a West coast IPA, I generally will rarely try it. But this festival forced me back into the craft beer world with a bunch of hazy IPAs, barrel aged anything, you know, like literally proper craft beer. It was great. I'm going to go and shout out actually what I found was my beer of the festival because this beer was like perfectly balanced. And for a hazy IPA. I think that is actually incredibly difficult and rarely do I drink multiple hazy IPAs yet I found myself relentlessly going back to this stand to keep getting more. So it was actually Gamma Brewing in Denmark and it was their Orb IPA with Citra, Galaxy and Nelson, and it was absolutely bang in. So if any of you are in Copenhagen and I want to go check out Gamma Brewing you'll see it around. Definitely try out that Orb IPA and let me know what you think. Great job from Pete and the team there at Gamma for smashing that. Okay, back to the crushing reality of learning rather than having fun at Mashfest. today we're going to learn about net zero. Now this is a term you will see thrown around in many different arenas. Heineken have set a net zero target for their breweries by 2030. AB InBev has set a net zero target for its value chain for 2040. The UK itself, the whole country, has set a net zero target for 2050. But what does this actually really mean? And is this something only companies blessed with the fortunes? Can afford Well, this is exactly what we will discover in this episode And to guide us through this complex world of what is right for us and the environment and what is corporate propaganda Is a thought leader in the sustainability world george wade George not only co founded one of the most exciting startups in sustainability tech called Zevero, he also spends his spare time compiling a sustainability newsletter that focuses on the positive winds in the sustainability world. It's an absolute must read. I subscribed to it the moment I met George and his bi weekly news keeps me motivated and informed on the latest and best in sustainability. But before we get into this episode, I have an important message to share. This episode is proudly sponsored by SSV limited your trusted partner in crafting bespoke production solutions for the beverage industry, whether you're just getting started or scaling up SSV limited is there every step of the way. From initial conception through installation to commissioning of your new equipment with exceptional after sales support. With over a decade of experience, SSV Limited has been supporting the beverage industry across the UK and Europe, delivering top tier innovative brewing systems, CO2 recovery solutions, process and storage tanks, as well as everything in between. Their expertise ensures that your project meets and exceeds your expectations from concept to completion. Ready to take your business to the next level? Visit ssvlimited. co. uk to learn more about their custom built solutions. SSV Limited, brew more, brew better. one of the reasons I'm so looking forward to this episode is George is a good friend of mine. I worked with him at Zevero for a period of time last year, and I am so pleased to see how well him and his co founder Ben have done. They truly deserve all the good things in life because they are such great people. So without any further delay, we're going to crack on with what could be the most important episode of the Modern Brewery Podcast so far, as we truly explore how a craft brewery can become net zero. Modern Brewery welcome to the show. My good friend, George Wade. Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me. This is so cool. I've been wanting to do this for so long, ever since we started working together and being this, like being together, I just can't wait to have you on the podcast. And, you know, it's been a long time coming, so it's great to have you on. Yeah. I didn't think that I'd have to ask for permission to be on. You know, I was waiting for the invite. That was the problem. Chris. Chris. Yeah. Well, you know, you're so busy these days. I was like, you ain't gonna want to, you know, mess around with my, my podcast, to modern brewers. So. Oh God. I'll do it. I'll do anything for, the, the brewing doppelganger, which often is the, is the case at any event. I don't know how we're going to show this on YouTube, but we might have to do side by side. Otherwise no one is going to know who's talking. Yeah. Yeah. At least I've got glasses on this time. Wait, if I put my glasses Yeah, there you go for, for the, for the listeners, normally Chris and I turn up to every event where in the exact same outfit and we both just like look at each other saying, ah, damn, we've done it again. it's. It's all both got blonde hair, both wearing glasses, white t shirt and some sort of Chino trousers and an over shirt. And it's like, Oh mate, this is so tragic every time exactly. Slightly tired. each other to be like, what are you wearing? Cause I don't want to wear the same thing. Like it's like mean girls. yeah, exactly that. well, this is already going off to a pretty good start here, George. So, for the people who don't know who you are and haven't stalked me on LinkedIn, I don't know that I used to work with you. can you tell the listeners who you are and kind of what Zavera's role is in the brewing industry? Yeah, absolutely. so, I'm George Wade, one of the co founders at Zivero. We help, consumer goods, brands, and businesses around the world measure, reduce, and report on their emissions. So effectively helping them understand what. Their impact is so instead of being like, what on earth is our impact? And where can we make changes is actually giving them a number, helping them understand what that breakdown is of that number in, in their footprint and then having that plan for how they reduce those emissions over time and set targets and report on those emissions as well. So I guess our role and our position from that side is really to bring a a high quality understanding of what those emissions are to, to brewers, but also to, you know, to consumer goods brands and organizations around the world as well. which is, is very fun thing to do. Yeah, man. Yes, it's sweet. And how have you seen that sort of change in the brewing industry towards sustainability since you started Zavera? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I guess just to maybe go back into part of the reason why, why I started it and then that will help explain, that change that's been made. And one thing to note is that both myself and Ben, my co founder, we were in sustainability and consulting before, and we both were working with, you know, bigger corporations and Basically just became really frustrated at the fact that they were spending tens, if not hundreds of thousands and close to a million pound on budget for sustainability and not really achieving anything. And we realized that one of the biggest bottlenecks in that was that if they had 10 hours to spend on sustainability, nine hours was on measuring and doing through through archaic systems and not getting the best data and whatever it might be. And then actually one hour was an action. So for us, Both myself and Ben came together on the shared problem. we actually only ever met once in, in a pub at university. And, that was a brief, brief introduction and we wanted to flip that switch on how do we go from actually, if you've got 10 hours to spend, can you do. One hour on measurement, do it more accurately, do it more automated, do it more integrated, and then you can use those nine hours for action, but you can also obviously get your time back and spend it on what you need to as well. so that's, that's kind of why we started and ultimately to try and bring that level of transparency and accuracy to the SME market, really. And. One thing on, on that and those changes is that when we first started back in 2021 and 2020 as well, Ben was running his own consultancy and working with like data and people like that is that. It was really hard for people to go. What on earth is those are those emissions? And they were focusing on things like, you know, the plastic poly wrap that was around the pallets. And, that's what my background was in way. So I was spending time helping people understand which bin that should go in and where it should go and how to get rid of it. And actually what we, what I realized in my journey into it was that. Until you have the data on where are your emissions coming from, and you realize it's not the pallet wrap that matters, it's actually the thing in the pallet. So we've actually had that transition from brewers and generally companies going from a lack of kind of carbon literacy, all the way and focusing on things like pallet wrap and things like that, to now we have this fantastic ecosystem where for Bali is massively growing and everyone from, you know, Munton's all the way through to people like Gypsy Hill are doing fantastic work and with wild farmed on that. So I think that the biggest change that I've seen is the awareness and the understanding both of the problem where the emissions sit within a supply chain and also just generally what the priority should be to focus on. So I'd like to think that we have a small part to play in helping reduce People have access to that level of data, which is, is pretty wicked. But yeah, that's the biggest change I've seen, I guess, is that we've gone from carbon neutrality and plastic to actually what sustainability means on a more, in a bigger way and in a much better way, I think. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's so funny is how much, how many things have been demonized, plastic straws, palette wraps are such a great example, like palette wrap, but it's actually the contents of the palette is actually where the emissions are coming from, not the palette wrap itself. so. how's net zero come into play? And if we can just go pretty basic, like what is net zero and then how does that affect the brewing industry Yeah, absolutely. Great question. One that I get quite a lot on, what on earth does it actually mean? I think the most important thing really for net zero is basically just balancing the emissions that we put into the atmosphere With what goes into the ground and is absorbed. Now, just a quick, point that I think that will probably have come onto anyway, but the difference between net zero and carbon neutral net zero, you actually, we have to reduce our emissions. That's the most important thing. So we actually need to, whilst we need to have a net production of zero into the atmosphere, we need to reduce our emissions by about 90 percent because we can't physically sequester around 51 billion tons of emissions that we, we, that we emit right now. So. Yeah. For net zero, it's actually about decarbonization first and offset and removal last. That's the best way to think about it. And we need to get to that 90 percent reduction by 2050, which is down to around four or 5 billion tons of emissions, which is still a heck of a lot. What carbon neutral is, which I think is almost easier because you've seen a lot of people, you know, do offsets and things like that. That's actually about balancing one for one. So if you produce one, one set of emissions and you offset one ton. So that could be through carbon removal. So things like soil sequestration, through tree planting or mangroves, but also through like direct air capture and these big machines that they have now for, you know, capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or it could be that you're paying somebody else not to pollute. So, for example, it could be that you're helping, put cook stoves in sub Sahara Africa so that they use cleaner energy sources. Carbon neutral effectively still means you're producing one ton of emissions into the atmosphere. That's the most important thing to know. Whereas net zero is all about how do we go from that one ton down to ideally zero, but at least 90 percent reduction as well. So it's a bit complicated and sometimes can be a challenging when you put carbon negative and all this sort of carbon positive and all these words that get used, but ultimately net zero is about decarbonization first. And anything else is about effectively somewhat marketing campaigns on trying to balance, Carbon neutrality effectively. Great. And for the, I know the listeners hopefully have listened to the episode I did with Chris Terry on sustainability 101, where we did go through a lot of the key concepts of. Sustainability, but what are the emissions that we're trying to reduce? Cause I know that obviously it's good to talk about scope one, two, and three at this point, because. Can you be net zero on just what you produce or are you always going to be responsible for what you purchase as well? Yeah. So it's a bit tricky. I'd say just for, you know, for most breweries that are listening, the most important thing for, there's an organization called science based targets initiative. They effectively set the rules and regulations almost for what constitutes net zero and what's the science based target. And that's aligning with the Paris agreement of 1. 5 degrees. So actually, yeah. When we think about those emissions, you're right, we have that scope 1, 2, 3, so scope 1 being direct emissions, things like your gas boilers, your refrigeration leakages, fermentation, scope 2 being electricity, and scope 3 being everything else, the supply chain. decarbonizing your supply chain is is the largest source of your emissions. It's actually around anywhere from like 80 to 90 percent depending on the on the brewery. And that is really hard because you're reliant on everybody else decarbonizing as well. So when we talk about net zero, We have to think about scope one, two, and three, but science based targets for SMEs, they actually do more on just scope one and two. So you can set science based targets for SMEs, which is, you know, what a small brewery might do, as well. And they would set them. And it's actually a reduction in your scope one and two between now and 2030. And then scope three comes into it from 2030 onwards. So it's a slight differentiation. The big difference is, The big boys, the big companies, whether that's a grocer, you know, anyone that it could be, they have to consider all of it. But for that SME market, scope one and two is really where, regulation will come into to report on that sort of stuff. But it's important to consider scope one, scope three as part of that as well, because that is the biggest source of those emissions. It's, it's where, you know, your malt is basically going to be 25 percent of your, your emission, basis. So that's why you have people in regen ag and people trying to focus on decarbonizing the, you know, the, the, the malting industry and things like that as well, because that's where the emissions really for a brewery from a single product come from alongside packaging and things like that as well. Hmm. Yeah, that's fascinating. And it's quite nice to hear that breweries should be focusing on their own. Emissions because it can be so exhausting when you start trying to think about how to decarbonize your entire value chain or supply chain and the calculations that you have to do to do that as so intense that you would exactly to take your point earlier, you would spend 10 hours, trying to calculate and zero hours actually reducing. So it's really good that brewers can have that. Ambition by 2030 to do that because, that's quite achievable in the Yeah. And I'd say on that as well, like probably, I mean, I would say that with the various, not that hard to do scope three. So that's, that's good to know. But, you actually need to separate out into three buckets when it comes to thinking about decarbonization. It's like, okay, what, what is, owned and operational and you can control. So that might be things like, you know, if you're a, if you're a brewery and you lease your unit, you've got like a 10, 15 year lease on there. You might think about putting solar PV on because actually that payback period is going to come within the time that you're in that facility and you can get grants and things like that available. So that's one way you can look at your electricity. You can also make those changes on Like, which I'm sure will come on to like, actually, what can you do, but things like renewable energy contracts, things like that. So you can, you can focus on those controllable things, which is great. But then you've also got to recognize that there are things that the second bucket is influence. So actually, say, for example, you have, a good example being that you can influence your choice of who you use for your malt contract or for your, for your hot contract or whatever it is. Now you're obviously going to go with the highest quality and the one that works best for you. But increasingly, you know, we're seeing across the entire malting industry that they're starting to say here is what our emissions are per kilogram. So you can factor in Whilst you can't say, actually, we're going to directly implement changes within, Simpsons or Maltans or insert Malt provider here. so none of them feel like I've singled them out, but they're able to. Report on this and they're going to be doing that journey anyway. So you can choose and you have some level of influence of who you choose there. And then there'll be some things where you basically just have no choice at all. So let's say for example, you're shipping products or, and you're using, you know, a third party logistics and basically everyone has to use HTVs or like whatever it is, that's where you just realized, right. Okay. Now I have all these problems. How can I segment them into what I actually can change, what I can influence and what I can change, maybe a little bit. and then recognizing that there's a lot of stuff that you can't influence. And that's just, that's, you know, year two, year three, year four of your sustainability journey. So not to feel overwhelmed from, from the get go on, feeling like you've got to do everything at once. It's really a case of starting and then building on that. Yeah. It's so important, as I said, it's so easy to get bogged down with sustainability, but, you're absolutely right. We are going to go into, how to start your sustainability journey. But a question I, I think about. Quite often is, do craft breweries struggle in specific areas of achieving net zero compared to other industries? Like, is there something that's quite unique about the craft brewing industry that makes it either more difficult or potentially even more easier? I'd say there's a, there's a couple of things which I think it's difficult for, for everyone, really. I think the one thing that I would say with, with breweries is they have When it comes to actually what is purchased in a brewery, right? It's, it's fairly simple. In terms of this, you know, four key ingredients in beer, but then there's not really too much outside of that. There's very few suppliers. So, you know, if we think about the fact that you've got effectively, if you're buying, your, your malt or your hops or your packaging from whoever, like everyone's using very similar companies for that. So it actually makes it really easy because you're not trying to choose a thousand ingredients. And if you think about if, you know, we work with cleaning product companies and they've got like formulations that have. Across 100 products might have 1700 ingredients or it might be that you're a, let's say a food based company. And even if you're making 10 varieties or skews of cakes, you're effectively using very different ingredients in each individual one or sandwiches or whatever it might be. So at least with brewing with beer, it's kind of a mix of the same stuff, but just done differently. So that that makes it easier for understanding how the industry can decarbonize, which is great. But then I do think that there are a number of different challenges for the brewing industry, which is effectively that it is kind of a, emission intensive. In the way that it works. You know, you're, you're doing a lot of heating, a lot of cooling, you're buying a lot of raw materials to make beer. And also one thing to note is that obviously beer is quite heavy to ship. So if you're shipping across a long, long distance, then that makes it a challenge. Whereas if you've got something which is a bit lighter, then it's, it's not, it's not as hard, but yeah, it's, it's hard for everyone. I think that there's, it's just a case of. Everyone's reliant on that supply chain decarbonizing and then being able to do what they can. But I think that one thing I feel very strongly about with the passion of working with brewers and is, is a very physical product, right? And you, I think part of the reason why a lot of breweries want to do this and are interested is because they can see the output. They can see the spent grains. They can see all the things that come out of it and the amount of packaging and cardboard and everything that's used. So I think that there's actually a big opportunity there because, What's often quite invisible emissions for some people is quite visible for a brewery. so I think that there's a challenge on decarbonization and obviously like capital and cost is an issue, but actually there's a really good opportunity because it's, it's quite an important part for brewers. They know the value that the supply chain has and, and how the beer is made. And it's quite a good connection that people have. so I think it's, It can be a bit tricky to say whether it's easier or harder, depends on how much money you've gotten, how easy your supply chain is. Exactly. And that's actually a point I really I wanted to make, so I've seen that, Heineken, for example, want to do net zero in their breweries. I don't think it's their value chain by 2030 AB and Bev, their entire value chain, so everything they purchase, everything they do net zero by 2040. But we're talking about breweries who have substantial capital or capital expenditure budgets. These are like substantial and probably 80 percent of them are getting plowed into anything that'll give them, that'll achieve, These targets. So how important is the role of capital in achieving net zero and can a small brewery overcome that? Yeah, I think, I think it's a big problem. I think it's probably the one area where if I had, you know, one genie wish for how we could help tackle climate change, I think it's about unlocking green finance for, For everyone, because the options are there, you know, this solar PV can help people reduce their emissions. You've got, you know, people I know that, you know, well, like frigid cloud can reduce your energy consumption. You've got a lot of different solutions. Whether that's, you know, CO2 recapture systems, et cetera, but it all requires money and it's all quite capital intensive. So you're completely right. The big brewers have an advantage. They can plow, you know, millions, if not hundreds of millions of pounds into decarbonisation. It's not the case for most small breweries. Really it's, it makes it tricky. So I think that that access to capital is a, a big thing. And then to get around that problem, I think that increasingly, obviously the cost of things for decarbonization are coming down a little bit. So we've seen obviously the introduction of Dalham units and things like that, which are trying to build lower costs, smaller units, which is fantastic. But then also what we're seeing is that the price of solar is going down and that there's grants available and, you know, there's a lot of things that are possible. For us to make smaller changes or to use capital, which is outside of, you know, within, within the budgets of brewers themselves. And, and actually from local councils and authorities as well, because it's in everyone's best interest to minimize energy use and to minimize the emissions in the direct operations. But you're right. It can be incredibly costly and without more that can be done on there. It's, it's a challenge. Yeah. But that being said, there'll be a lot of breweries listening to this thinking, okay, that's fine. capital will come. The cost of things are coming down. I think that's such a excellent point and the technology is becoming so much more available to the smaller brewer. I think Dalham is one of the best examples of that, which you just gave, What they have done for the capabilities of the industry to decarbonize is fantastic. I appreciate it as a capital expenditure cost with it, but these things will come down over time. And as competitors enter the market, things will naturally start to come down as well. But for a brewer who's listening to this right now, what can they do to start working towards net zero today? Yeah. Great question. I think the, the, the one thing that I always say to everyone is like the first step that you should do is if you've not got a renewable energy contract and you really need to change that now, I know some people are using brokers and the locked into contracts and things like that, but the cost of going to someone like octopus energy, which the reason why I go to them, as an example, quite often is because they're not with brokers. So you have to go direct, but they have yeah. The same price energy for as basically anyone and you can report those emissions more technical under market based reporting. But you can effectively report them as zero. So that's the one biggest change you can have. If you think about the fact that 567 percent of your emissions for a brewery across the entire supply chain and scope 123 will be electricity actually switching to a renewable contract is a big, big win. And it's you saying, I can't afford solar panels, but I'm signaling to the market that I would like more and more renewables to be built. So that's one, one thing I always say is if you've not done that, then you should do it. And why have you not done it so far? And then in terms of the next things, I think actually just speaking with your team and understanding, okay. They, people have great ideas, right? Cause you've worked in breweries. I've not had the privilege to actually do that myself, but it's the same with any business. You've got staff that are like, actually, I think that we're doing this inefficiently, or I think that we could change this process and it could be more efficient. So I think that, think about it as obviously some of the bigger picture, like Dalham and, and solar PV, that's, you know, it's a big project, but there's so many different ways that efficiency can be brought into brewing. And I, Obviously, I know most people want to do that anyway, because it's a cost saving activity, but I think having your team work as a unit around, okay, this is about efficiency, cost saving and carbon saving is, is really crucial. So that's the two big wins is like, right, we're going to spend an hour and we're gonna be like, what, what could we do differently to reduce or find a way to report. You know, if someone's working in the brewery and they go, actually, this is really inefficient, I think we should change this, but I don't know how to voice that to the head brewer or whoever it is, their senior, then you need to create a system to, to allow that to happen so that you actually encourage innovation within the brewing industry. And I know you had, you know, like small beer on and perfect example. It's like, okay, why are we actually using so much water on the brewing floor? Like. Can we change this? Can we get that down? Because I think that those steps are the, they're free, right? And they can save you money in the, in the short term as well. Yeah. I echo that entirely. I mean, I I think you mentioned it earlier, but reducing what you It's really like the main first start of all sustainability and how we're going to actually cut emissions by reducing what we actually consume and then making better decisions in the future. And the example of small beer again is perfect. Like they just set the tone. They set a narrative. We are not going to put water on our brewing floor and that's going to save us. two or three liters to make a liter of beer. And that's exactly what happened. They did that. And that came with everyone's buy in. and it's all about getting the team involved and making those changes. And one thing I always say is, okay, water, maybe as a bad example here, because it's not the most expensive, but if you had a similar philosophy, but with electricity. Then you can bank that money that you've saved by reducing to put towards something that can help you get to net zero. So, but you have to want it, have to want that and that to be your goal. Yeah, no, completely. I also think that one thing I would say on that is that obviously I know you've done fantastic benchmarking tools and things like that with brew resourceful. And it'd be good for people to, to actually, they need to understand where they are because they might be super efficient and they're going to try and change everything that they do, but actually they're already doing a good job. So it might be that they've got one area where they're succeeding a lot already. And one area where they're struggling and it might be that it's, you know, the refrigeration system or whatever it is. Is, is inefficient. So by understanding where you fit within the market and what's good and what's not good, I think is also a great first step for people to, to go through. And obviously the, the work you do in that, is fantastic too. Appreciate it. I don't know how to take compliments. So I'm just going to go silent. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's a typical Brit. There you go. Just like recoil. Someone says something, one thing. Nice. I can't, you just insult me please. So I can feel comfortable. Um, um, all right, man. So look, that that's great. The energy, renewable energy tariff is just such a good one to start off with. As you said, it's like, okay, you can't afford solar panels, but you can still afford to buy renewable energy. So, you can do it that way rather than generating yourself. I question, I actually am, this is a bit off what we talked about, but I, I wanted to ask you this question when we did our talk at the Brewer's Congress or the panel, but we, this is entirely my fault, tried to cram so much into 30 minutes, we didn't quite get to ask. So, because I get asked this a few times from the people that I speak to and, in breweries, and they say, if I'm buying renewable energy, my electricity from a renewable energy source, why do I need solar panels? I like, is there, what, what's your like opinion on that? I know it's a bit off, but yeah. Yeah, I think it's, I mean, in decarbonisation terms, I mean, kind of the benefit is effectively that we know for definitely that we're adding extra renewable capacity to the grid and you're removing the need for, you know, Effectively energy to come from the grid to to your site. So that's one thing. There are emissions associated with basically getting energy from production to to a brewery, which confusingly comes under scope three and something called fuel and energy related activities. So we'll ignore that one for now. So you will save emissions from that side when it comes to scope three. But I also think it's just a it's actually more about risk management. Thank you Than anything else. So you have solar PV on your, on your roof, you know how much you're paying for energy, you know, how much you're going to be able to produce and you de risk any prices increases effectively. I understand the point where it's like, okay, but what about my emissions? If I'm using renewable energy, it's the same. But it's also a case of that's great. If you're already at the best option, how do you then remove dependency from those price fluctuations and also the national grid might increase. It's unlikely that it will, but if it does increase, then your emissions are going to increase. But if you have solar PV, you have solar PV. It's you rely less on, on what happens outside of your business. So, and I always think it's a cost thing, right? If, if the payback period is quite short and you have solar PV on your roof, you get free energy from. The point on, so, you know, it's, it becomes more of a financial and a, and a risk decision, than, than anything else, but it's still, it's still a great option to have. Yeah. Great. It's good. Cause that's a better answer than what I've been giving. So that's perfect. What have you been saying? sniffing, I'll be sniffing that out and shipping that across. Don't you worry. Yeah. What have you been glasses on and they'll think it's me be perfect. Um, so what about the next three years, George? So we talked about what a brewery can do now, tomorrow, next month. But if your plan, if you want to become net zero, you've got to make a plan that's beyond the next six months. So what should breweries focus on in the next like one to three years as a part of their journey? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that, probably the most important one is just doing that, like the, I guess the, the first year, right? And, and I guess understanding like where you are and getting a good understanding and proxy of, of, what your impact looks like and where you can control 'em, where you can't control'em, where you can influence, as well. So you can at least have a bit of peace of mind, get the problems out your head and onto paper. and that doesn't mean you need to waste like a, you know, a carbon strategy. You just need to have a good understanding of where you are and, and what's actually. Achievable for the team to understand as well. And where you want to get to what I would say from, from like year one to three, it's sustainability is ever changing. So it's always an ongoing process. It's about understanding, okay, well, this is what we said we wanted to do. Are we improving on this? Are we making changes, et cetera? So that's, that's first and foremost is if you're setting goals in the first year, are you achieving them in the second year? Are you achieving them in the third year? Do you need to recalibrate what those goals look like? Because. You know, the amount of people that said that they want to be carbon neutral by 2030 or net zero by 2030 and 2020, they're now going, that's actually really hard. We can't do that. so I think that it's about trying to be flexible on, on what you're doing always and trying to think about that as well. But I would say that there's, there's quite a few other things that, you know, things that will happen, or you'll discuss in year one, that won't happen until year three. So let's say, for example, you've got a fleet of electric vehicle, a fleet of vehicles in the company. Let's say you've got five vans, right? Or five cars or whatever it might be. And right now you've got zero, electric vans or electric cars. You should be between years one and three as those leases run down, basically. Okay. A bit right. Okay. Okay. Now we can make those changes in year three. We can change from when this van lease comes up, we're going to swap to an electric van. So it's all about trying to understand like what you can do over time and then, and then building that in. And then I'd say the other thing, which probably is quite important and we've not really touched on too much is on that packaging side of things as well. So, we have, Something which I'll share with Chris afterwards for the, for the show notes or however it works. But, we have a decarbonization guides, which goes through all of this stuff, which people can get for free. It's everything from your, you know, electricity, water, supply chain, deliveries, et cetera. So we trying to help out as much as we can with free information, but packaging the emissions from glass are really high. The, Emissions from, transporting things a long way are really high. So actually just kind of like looking at how do you package things and how do you transport your materials? And effectively we have one of our customers who used to London based the contract brewed in Aberdeen. And then they'd ship beer down to London to then sell it basically in London. And we were like, well, hold on a minute, carting liquid down, which is super, super heavy to then sell it in an area where, then you're effectively, why don't you produce locally? And then you can just go for a more sustainable brewer as a contract brewer down here. And, and those sorts of changes that you can make after you've run up the periods of, you know, you have a contract on, on contract brewing and things like that. So I think that looking at. What you can do over these years and be like, right, okay, maybe something isn't possible to control in the, in the first year or something we can influence at that starting point and then see those changes happen over time. I think is kind of the most important thing as well. But another point I'd say is start engaging with your, you know, your supply chain as well. So start looking at what what's possible. For what's happening with the people you're already working with, you know, there's people like i've used them a lot But simpsons and munson's they're doing great work on decarbonizing They have big plans on regen ag and things like that So I think just understanding What's happening within your supply chain and that actually people are already doing a lot of great work will help you Plan for that year kind of one to three effectively. A question for you, George, if I'm a brewer, listen to this thinking, okay, I want to start thinking about over the next few years and asking my suppliers and challenging them, how do they find out people's emissions? Like, how would they do that? And how do they compare them? Yeah, it's a really good point. that's a complex complex equation sometimes which even you know for us it's difficult because You You're not always comparing apples and apples. Some people will include certain things, some people will exclude certain things. The, probably the most important thing to look at is how much detail do people give in the report? Are they working with, somebody that, you know, have you got Dave from accounts or Dave from whoever that's got, here's our number? Or do you want any more information? I can't give it to you. Like that's where you get alarm bells. It's the same way. If someone said, okay, well, this is the price of our product. And you go, well, hold on a minute. What's the breakdown. What am I paying for? What, what do I get for this? So I think when people can, can show in that detail and the, like, actually here is 10 percent of our emissions came from electricity here is what we're doing to decarbonize, actually, this is where all of our emissions come from and show that breakdown. That's where you can start to trust it because anyone that's got that level of detail has done the numbers. And it's always going to be a changing. You know, there's changing the landscape. There's always going to be new numbers and new changes, but if someone's actually gone to the detail of. Being able to give a full breakdown of where that impact comes from. They've evidently put a lot of work to get there. So I, I guess I'd speak to the suppliers. People are doing this people like Yakima chief, who one of our customers that are doing great work, they're wanting to report on it. And I think that often a lot of suppliers have all this information. They just, they also don't know how to share it. So by just having that conversation around what are you doing and what are your plans, it might not need, it might not be a number right for the first part, it might not be a, oh, we're at 0. 2 kilograms per kilogram of product, but it's actually here is our plans and here is our journey. And just to know that almost if you take that metric is are what percentage of our suppliers. Have set net zero targets or are working on sustainability actively and effectively at this point, you know, you should really have 100 percent of people at that point, but say it's less than that. It's actually okay. Well, how do we help? maybe it's a transport company, logistics company that doesn't care. And they're like, yeah, well, well, we, we don't care in any of that stuff. It might be that actually what you want to have in the future is okay. Well, our contract comes up next year. And now this is actually important to us. Cause we realized around 20 percent of our emissions come from transport and shipping. Well, if we want to make changes and we want to align with what we do. Maybe we should say to that company, look, here is why we care about it. We know that you're great. We know we agree with all this sort of stuff on, you know, delivery and getting your beer to your system is the most important thing, but actually there's a lot of companies that can do that for you. So we're going to go and start thinking about using somebody else that cares about sustainability, because that's important to us. So I think that it's just having that kind of like adult conversation with them about what journey they're on. And if that aligns with the journey that you want to be on as a company as well. awesome. So talking about beyond three years, what, what do you see on the horizon in terms of sustainability that will affect breweries trying to get to net zero and what maybe they should be looking at and considering when thinking about net zero beyond even three years? Yeah. it's a really good question. When does three years get us to like 2028, which is kind of wild. Yeah. Right. Terrifying. Actually. absolutely. I think that one thing just as a general point on that longer term plan, and, and we're increasingly seeing it in the short term, like right now, I genuinely, you know, I have deals that I'm working on at the minute where it's basically companies that are in the drinks industry, not in brewing are coming to me and saying, Hey, we've basically been asked by Tesco. We need to do this. Otherwise they're going to struggle to, you know, or it's going to be detrimental to our longterm relationship or whatever, which I think is a very interesting part of this journey where we're starting to see those bigger organizations, you know, the bigger breweries doing, quite a lot of volume who are being asked for this information by grocers, by pub groups, cause they've all set their targets for net zero, right? So they're going, Oh, hold on a minute. Your beer mix. my scope three emissions. So I need to know what your beer is because at the minute I don't know what it is and I'm using rubbish averages. So I think going into that looking beyond kind of the next few years is that increasingly will be people will be requesting data on what emissions are and they need those numbers. So I think that you know, breweries can take steps now where they just make changes and then maybe you don't need to measure everything. Although it's very, very useful and it's beneficial for them to understand. But over the next few years, Increasingly, that's going to become, of importance. And I think that, corporate footprinting is the emissions across the entire supply chain is important, but then also I think that what. Supermarkets and grocers and buyers are going to be asking for is more on that product carbon footprinting as well. So things that we've done with, you know, with data where they have the emissions of every, every beer on the can and, and things like that, because it helps understand, okay, well, I want to buy that beer. I want to buy a, a hazy IPA and not, you know, Double dry hops, 8 percent beer, which maybe has higher emissions. I want to go for the lower, lower carbon option. So I think that that's where we're getting to. And I think that breweries will have to start thinking about, okay, well, actually, if we need to share this data, what's the best way to do it? And what are people asking for? So really building for that. I also think that in terms of beyond that, there's so much that's going to happen, right? Innovation. Like there are so many different ways that we're going to be able to reduce our impact, whether that's, breweries that are using heat pumps for their heat rather than having to rely on natural gas and things like that. So I'd say just be open to the opportunities that are out there and recognize that you might not be able to do everything. That you want to do in year three, but it's really around. Okay. What are the actionable stuff now? What what can we do, which is our big picture stuff, which is on supply chain on your malt, your hops, your packaging, changing from All right, we do 20 percent of our our products are in glass bottles We actually want to change that to 10 percent over the next few years because we're going to do more cans Because we're going to save nearly half the emissions per beer on on the packaging And then in year three, it's really about being open to those bigger projects that might come out and the things that basically you don't know what's going to happen and there will be new things. So just keep an open eye out to, to what that looks like. But one thing that's for definite is that within the next three, four years, data is going to be a crucial part in that and how you can report that to, to the people that you sell to effectively. yeah, it's such a good point. I'm actually gonna ask a question of regulation next, but I find it really Interesting how the small brewer, in my opinion, is probably going to fly under the radar in a lot of ways in terms of sustainability and the targets that they're expected to meet because they're a small business, but their biggest impact is anyone who is, or wants to sell to pub groups or supermarkets or anyone, these are the people who are going to come down on the small brewer the hardest because exactly right. It's their emissions. And we've all worked around environments of supermarkets. They, they are ruthless and they're like, these are my emissions targets. If you don't, if you start eating into that, you better have the world's best brand for me to, to, to, to, to absorb it. And you know, that's, it's quite an interesting, development that's going to happen in the brewing industry. I, I hear a lot. As well, Jordan, I, I'm, I'm guessing that you hear this as well. Like a lot of breweries are like the problem with they have with sustainability is they put a lot of capex into it and then they're like, we don't see anything back. You know, maybe they get an ROI, but they think that sustainability doesn't sell. So in your opinion, does sustainability sell? And if so, how do people capitalize on their sustainable efforts to potentially bring in more revenue, as well as just returning an investment and reducing costs? you know, we did it. We did a report on this last year and I can again. I can share that with the most important thing for for trying a beer, right? Is that people are going to buy beer? If it tastes good, and they said the price that they can afford, but actually what's really interesting is that the third most important thing for, People, when they're buying those products is sustainability. Now there will be a number of different things that come into it. And, people can say, well, that's what they say, but do they actually do that? And I think that whilst I agree with a lot of that sentiment, I think that people buy what they want to buy and people will go to a big brewer. And they'll buy the cheap lager and they'll make concessions because they don't really care at that point around sustainability. I think that there's almost like a one pint rule. Your first pint, you care about the sustainability maybe. And then after that point, if you're a lightweight like me, you just kind of like, right, well, what do I want to drink? What's good. But I actually think what's important in that and to understand is that I think that sustainability will almost be like a hygiene factor in In the way that brands are thought about. And we've moved on from that stage where it's we're carbon neutral or where, we've offset all our emissions with this company, or we're taking. We're doing X, Y, Z. I think now actually, and again, this is almost comes back to the grosser point of view is that yes, while each individual brand has to do something on it. So I think that day I do a great job of communicating all this stuff that they've done and, and the work that they're doing. And that resonates really well. I don't think that's the reason for data success. I think it's because they make really, really great beer, but it's now a thing where people expect. The other brands will do similar. And almost, I think that we're at the point where, when I mean that hygiene factor, what I basically mean, and for, I heard about this at a talk recently, so I can't take any of the credit for sounding smart, but I can at least repeat what I thought sounded wise is that effectively in the nineties, if someone said, okay, well, you're going to get a laptop with this job. You'd be like, Oh my gosh, my own laptop. That is like incredible. Whereas now if you've got a laptop, you just like, yeah, well, obviously how else would I do any work? Like that's, you know, that's, that's the case for a lot of people. And before sustainability was seen as like this bit that's like, Oh my gosh, sustainable brand. Fantastic. We're going to get you through the door and we're going to, yeah, you're going to grow rapidly because you're sustainable. And now it's a case of like, do you want to get through the door? Well, you need to be sustainable. Like, okay, you haven't got me a laptop for my job. Like I'm not going to take the job or I haven't got, you know, these benefits, or I haven't got this many days holiday. Like things become what's expected of brands. So I think that they were getting to that point where if I go into a, a pub, or if I go into a grocery store, I'm kind of expecting the due diligence to be put on the pub group and the grocery store. And I want. Every beer to be something that somebody is doing sustainably or they're all making an effort. So I think that sustainability selling as a add on to a product and being like, actually, yeah, we're sustainable. It's not going to lead to magical growth, but I think what it's going to do is it's going to prevent missing any opportunities and it's basically just. The whole thing about it being a need to have now rather than a nice to have. I think that's where the difference has come in over the last few years as well. So, but yeah, I thought that was actually a really good analogy when I heard it and I, and I agree with it. I think that's, you expect that of brands these days. And if you're not doing it, the supermarkets and the, you know, the, the pub groups are going to expect it as well. so I think it's more about instead of unlocking new opportunities, using that sustainability tag, it's actually about making sure you can compete with the rest of the market and not get left behind by not investing in, in that stuff that people expect for you to do now. Amazing. Yeah. That is a really powerful analogy. Isn't it? Cause it's so real. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, does it sell more? I mean, that's a, it's such a difficult question, but as you said, it's just, it's becomes the hygiene factor. So yeah. It's so cool. Yeah. Really, really enjoyed that. I'm so glad I asked that question. George, I've started to do this thing now on the podcast. I don't know if anyone's actually noticed, but I'm asking people if they're top three of some sort of specific questions. So I find that sustainability like most things, but for some reason, even more so with sustainability is riddled. With misconceptions. So from your experience, what are the top three misconceptions you see about sustainability in breweries? Oh, this is a good question. one, the sustainability has to be expensive. I think that that's probably, it actually is. We talked about efficiency a lot here. We talked about saving costs and we talked about opening doors. So I think that people seeing sustainability as a cost is actually, it is a benefit. It can amplify a lot of things that you already do in the branding as well. And, you know, we've got clients who will be spending millions of pounds on marketing, but if you spent a couple of grand on, on, something to do with sustainability, all it's going to do is amplify that like marketing spend. So kind of thinking about it as bringing the entire business up rather than just being a sunk cost into, into one thing. So I think that's, that's probably the biggest misconception. and also it can be free. there's so many resources out there. I'd say the second one is basically it being really scary. It's not, everyone's already doing a lot of stuff sustainability wise. So I think from my perspective, it's a case of, Oh, well, I don't know how to do it, so I can't do anything. And I think it's actually quite easy when you go through it. And obviously it's a learning curve, but there's so many resources there, but it's that starting small element of it. It's like, okay, actually we're on our sustainability journey and we're not. Like, you know, we're not doing what the big bros are doing and putting hundreds of millions of pounds into whatever it is. And we're not, we're not reinventing the wheel here, but it's actually, okay, we're going to learn as we go. And I think. On that one, a really interesting point is that I've worked with customers now who in 2021, I was explaining to them what scope one, two, three means. And now I actually see them on panels for sustainability talking about, you know, the, the challenges and all of this sort of stuff. So within that small period of time, they've been like, right, okay, I'm going to learn about this as I go. And for me, like, I love that moment. It's almost like the, almost as a zero graduation, right. It's the, you've come in at your first year and you. You've gone out and you, you're trying to understand the new and new introduction lectures, and now see people basically right. And almost like, what is a dissertation element of it? And they're on the panels and they're, they're, able to talk about it. So fluently on calls and teach me things. I think that that's, that's fantastic. So that makes conception that you have to know it all to start is, is, is my second. And then the final thing is that like only, only big companies can actually take action. I think is the. A pretty ridiculous statement, to be honest, because big, big companies actually find it really hard because they've got so many processes and so many middle managers and so many challenges to go through. Yes, they can put loads of money into it, but can they make changes in the space of a few weeks? Probably not. Right. It will take them two or three years to really make a change. So I think sustainability isn't a cost. It can be cheap, but it also is a driver for, for business success. Second one being that you don't need to know everything to start. And then the final thing is that you don't need to be big to be good. I guess is the probably three that I can think of off the top of my head. Love that man. It's my new favorite question. Top three or Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Yeah. Also, it's just nice and condensed. It's really good stuff. so I've got a question for you in your opinion, after all of we've talked about for the craft small brewer, is net zero a real possibility? Yes. And no, I would say, depending on what timeline you look at. It might be a possibility for 2050, but I would say the journey to net zero is possible. Net zero as a, as a, as a figure and saying we are a net zero brewery at this point in time, just for, to be a bit grumpy and in the way that this is the whole world doesn't have to get to net zero. So how on earth is a craft brewer going to know how to get to net zero, right? That's the, that's the problem that we face with, with climate change and making this, making a difference. So no, they can't be a net zero right now. But if we think about it literally as a graph and you're at 100 tons of emissions now and you need to get to 10, that graph is not binary of are you there or are you not? It's actually we start 100 and we go down and we make changes and we improve and we make progress and we put renewable energy contracts in, we change our packaging, we make sure that we've got efficient systems when our, in our, in our operations, you know, in the future, we're going to electrify these vehicles and then we're going to have regenerate, regen ag for our, malt across it. Every beer and not maybe just one trial beer. So I think that that journey that people can go on is very realistic, but to say that you're a craft brewery and you can set a target by 2030 to be, to be net zero, effectively impossible across scope one, two, three right now. However, you could also be net zero and much quicker across scope one and two. So if we think about entire brewery production. It's challenging if we think about it as your operations, it's maybe more likely, but it's still a big journey that everyone has got to go on, together. But it's all about starting, is the most important thing that graph is going down over time. And if you're not actually putting your, you know, plotting your own graph on there of where you are, then you're still in the same position where you were maybe two, three years ago, and you could have made a lot of changes. Awesome, George. So if there's anyone listening now, who's like wanting to start the journey, or maybe they're already started, but they want to know where they can learn more about quite brewery specific topics in sustainability, because that's quite niche, obviously. What sort of resources do you have and, and tools that they could might be able to use? You've mentioned a couple of them already, but let's just list them out now. And everything will go in the show notes for anyone who is listening. So you can just pop on there and find links to all of them. Yeah, absolutely. So there's, there's loads of different resources, which I think is great between, you know, not just me and Zavero, but also people like yourself, Chris, as well. So there's so much improvement that's been made over the last few years. I have a decarbonization guide, which has everything from basically starting your sustainability journey, how to build a green team, how to, you know, Think about supply chain, how to, you know, the, the whole process for free, just take it, please use it, learn, learn from it. and from that side, I think that the next thing would be, you know, pretty resourceful and the great work that you do, Chris, with one of your many companies at this point in time, all massively profit generating and, but really being able to understand where you fit within the market, I think is, is really good steps. So you start with that. You know, if I talked about. You're at a hundred, you need to get to 10. If you don't know whether you're at 50 or whether you're at a hundred or a thousand, that's, that's a really good starting point just for your operational emissions. There's another thing as well, which I, we launched a partnership with SIBA, for basically any brewer as part of SIBA to be able to do scope one, two, and operational scope three, which basically is just waste and water. So. Not supply chain for those emissions. That's going to be something which we're launching towards the end of this year fully, and will be a free product for any SIBA member effectively, meaning you can report your emissions to supermarkets for things that they request right now for free with somebody that's basically verifying the data. So how'd you like them apples, on a preview. so effectively what we have is resources on. What on earth should we be doing and what does this guide mean? And, and what, what should that journey look like? All right. We want to get started. We want to use a, you know, we want to benchmark ourselves against the brewery. I'm going to go to brew resourceful. I'm going to do that. Okay. Well, supermarkets are asking me for this data. I don't want to pay. I don't want to pay five grand for a consultant to give me a figure that doesn't take that much work. Okay. So Vera's got a free calculator. Great. We'll use that and we'll, we'll track our data through there as well. And then I think that, you know, we're always sharing great blogs on the website. Things like demystifying, where does the impact of your malt actually come from? And things like shipping being a big source of emissions relative to the, where something has grown. It's not, it's the whole, you know, the whole thing is about what's actually the whole, the entire process and the entire supply chain. So we've got free guides, free resources, free platform, and then a number of different blogs and industry news. I think they also, the final thing on that as the call to action. And what can you do is just speak to brewers on, on what's happening. Like, I know you all talk to each other and everyone speaks to each other anyway. But so many people have got great things going on and it's just about how do we share that culture. with the community on. All right, this worked. And I think that's the fantastic thing about sustainability. And and to close on is that it is collaborative, right? Is if one brewery gets to net zero, well, brilliant. What's the value in that? It's actually about how do we get the entire industry to get to net zero. And the more that we can help with that with zero is that's why we exist. And that's what I love doing. and that's what to me is important. So I think that that final pieces on that share and communicate with each other is great. you're right. We're one of the most collaborative industries I've ever seen in, across any of them, so let's exercise that collaborative nature and work together To fight sustainability in our industry and change the narratives of those top three misconceptions. I hear those at least once a week. So anyone who's listened to that now has armed with the three answers that we can go ahead and start making some good change in our industry. And I, one final thing I would just want to add is I was, I was doing a talk on water a couple of weeks ago and someone had made a point and I don't want it. They were like, why should we always be the ones in the brewing industry to make the change? Because they felt like there is so much bad going on with so many things around the world. And I was like, because we are the industry that does the right thing. And I feel like it's full of so many people who genuinely care about the environment, about people, and about the product that they make, that we do care about what we do. So we should be the industry, industry leaders with amongst all the other industries, and we should really just plant our flag as the industry that really made the big progress. And I think that would be like something we would all look back on in like 20, 30 years and be super proud of as a group of people. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I would also say that there's so much progress happening with every industry that, you know, sometimes people see a lot of the doom and gloom and like, Oh, but what about this? And what about that? But actually what you don't realize is all this stuff that's happening behind the scenes on, you know, I could talk about clients we have in, food or clients that we have in, in other drinks, categories and things like that. And the fantastic work they're doing. It's so much is happening. And so quickly that it. is great. It's a great question, but I think that people should know that there's so much going on in the world that is fantastic, that it's just a case of how do you understand everything that's positive that's happening, on that side. Love it. George Wade, my friend and comrade, thank you so much for coming on the Modern Brewer podcast. from everyone who listens, thank you so much for spending, spending your precious time with us and educating us on sustainability. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Yeah, no, thanks, Chris. Thanks for everyone listening, as well. So hopefully we've not bored you too much with sustainability talking legislation. but there you go. I think actually the legislation was actually pretty small, which is pretty good. I think that was like 40 minutes of legislation. We all would have been in a bit of trouble, I I think. I would have, I think we would have both just pause the, pause Yeah. So there you go. Nice. right, man. Look, thank you. Thank you so much, guy Well, that was a great episode. If you like the episode, please share with your friends, your brewing colleagues on Instagram or on LinkedIn. If anyone does that, I will just send them a t shirt. So if you want to do a share on Instagram or LinkedIn, tag me in it and I will send you a Modern Brewer Podcast t shirt. Thank you so much for listening and I will catch you on the next episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast