GaBi 4.3 LCA software (PE International 2010) has been used to model the system and the CML 2001 (Guinée et al. 2001) impact assessment method has been followed to estimate environmental impacts. The following impact categories are considered: GWP, abiotic depletion potential (ADP), acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), human toxicity potential (HTP), marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential (MAETP), freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity potential (FAETP), terrestrial ecotoxicity potential (TETP), ozone depletion potential (ODP), photochemical oxidants creation potential (POCP). In addition to the CML impact categories, the primary energy and water demand have also been estimated. These results are discussed below. They are presented first for the functional unit of 1 l of beer, starting with the GWP in the next section and followed by the other environmental impacts in section 3.2. These results are compared with other studies in section 3.3. Possibilities for reducing the impacts are explored in section 3.4 and the life cycle costs are discussed in section 3.5. Following this, the sectoral results based on the annual production of beer in the UK are discussed in Section 3.6.
Global warming potential
As shown in Fig. 3, the GWP of 1 l of beer in glass bottles is estimated at 842 g CO2 eq. The impact from beer in aluminium and steel cans is lower: 575 and 510 g CO2 eq., respectively. As can also be observed from the figure, packaging is the major hotspot, contributing between 35 % (for steel cans) and 55 % (glass bottles). This is mainly due to CO2 emissions from the production of packaging materials.
The contribution of raw materials and auxiliaries used in the beer manufacturing process ranges from 24 % (for glass bottles) to 39 % (for steel cans), mainly because of nitrous oxide emissions from barley cultivation and energy-intensive processing of barley malt. The share of different raw materials in the total GWP is shown in Fig. 4, with malted barley being the main contributor (57 %), followed by liquefied carbon dioxide (11 %) and light fuel oil (10 %). The contribution from carbon dioxide used for carbonation is due to the energy consumed for its purification and liquefaction. Because of the assumed biogenic origin of carbon dioxide, its release during the use stage is not considered in the analysis. In any case, the release of CO2 from beer is a complex issue which depends on many factors, including beer temperature (which affects the solubility of CO2) and whether it is drank immediately after opening or later (Tran et al. undated). Therefore, even if the origin of CO2 was from fossil sources, it would not be possible to determine with any accuracy its amount released from beer during consumption.
As also indicated in Fig. 3, beer production causes between 9 % (bottle) and 14 % (steel can) of the GWP, mainly because of electricity used in the process. Note that the biogenic carbon dioxide released during the fermentation of beer is not considered. The rest of the GWP is due to waste management (9–10 %) and transport (2–3 %).
Effect of refrigerated storage on the GWP
As mentioned earlier, in the base case we assume that beer is not refrigerated at retailer. However, a certain proportion of beer is always refrigerated at UK retailers for consumer convenience. Therefore, this section considers the effect of refrigerated storage at retailer. The focus is on the GWP as this impact is likely to be affected most, mainly because of electricity consumption during refrigeration and refrigerant leakage. Since beer bottles are typically refrigerated as single bottles without the secondary packaging (cardboard crate), this packaging is excluded from consideration in this case.
The results in Fig. 5 indicate that refrigerated retail storage adds between 15 % (aluminium can) and 18 % (bottle, without secondary packaging) to the total GWP of beer. This is based on the data in Table 3: during the assumed 1-day storage, electricity used to cool beer in bottles generates 119 g CO2 eq. and for that in cans 78 g CO2 eq./l of beer. The refrigerant leakage adds a further 35 and 23 g CO2 eq./l, respectively (Table 4), increasing the total GWP of bottled beer from 722 g CO2 eq./l (without secondary packaging, see Fig. 6) to 876 g CO2 eq./l (Fig. 5). The impact from canned beer goes up from 575 to 676 g CO2 eq./l for aluminium and from 501 to 611 g CO2 eq./l for steel cans. Therefore, retail refrigeration has a significant effect on the GWP and should be minimised. Instead, it would be better for consumers to chill the beer at home for a short time before consumption (an hour is normally sufficient, with canned beer cooling faster than bottled) since domestic refrigerators do not leak refrigerants and are more energy efficient, particularly if short-term storage is practiced.
Other environmental impacts
The results for the other environmental impacts are shown in Fig. 6. As mentioned earlier, the impacts of secondary packaging have not been assessed for the aluminium and steel cans (multi-pack plastic rings) because of a lack of data. Therefore, in order to compare the impacts of beer in different packaging on an equivalent basis, the impacts from beer in glass bottles are shown for two cases: with and without the secondary packaging (multi-pack cardboard crate). For completeness, the results are also shown for the GWP.
As can be observed from Fig. 6, beer packaged in the steel can has the lowest impacts for five out of 12 impact categories: PED, ADP, AP, MAETP and FAETP. Beer in the aluminium can is the best option for ODP and POCP but it also has the highest HTP and MAETP. The latter two are five and three times higher, respectively, than for the next best option, beer in the steel can. HTP is due to emissions of polyaromatic hydrocarbons from manufacturing of aluminium cans, while MAETP is mainly from hydrogen fluoride emissions, also from the can manufacturing process. The glass bottle, on the other hand, is the best option for the HTP but least favourable for eight impact categories (in addition to the GWP): PED, ADP, AP, EP, FAETP, TETP, ODP and POCP. This is regardless of whether the secondary packaging is considered or not. The impacts from bottled beer without the secondary packaging are lower by between 1 % (depletion of elements) and 14 % (GWP). There is little difference between the packaging options with respect to water demand as the vast majority of water is used for beer rather than production of packaging.
The relative contributions to the impacts from different life cycle stages are shown in Fig. 7(a–c) for the three packaging options. The raw materials and packaging are the main hotspots for the beer for all three options. The raw materials contribute on average 47 % (bottles) to 63 % (steel cans) and the packaging from 19 % (steel cans) to 46 % (bottles) to the impacts. For the beer in steel cans, beer production is also a major contributor to POCP, accounting for 57 % of this category. This is mainly due to nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide emissions in the life cycle of electricity used to produce steel. The contribution to the impacts of waste management and transport is small across the packaging types (~1 %).
Comparison of impacts with other studies
As discussed in the “Introduction”, a number of studies have been considered life cycle environmental impacts of beer produced in different parts of the world. Some of these are compared to the impacts estimated in current study. However, the comparison is only possible for a limited number of studies because of different life cycle impact methods used by different authors.
For the GWP, only four studies estimated the results according to the CML method and these are compared to the current study in Fig. 8. As can be observed, the results range widely across the studies, from 400–1475 g CO2 eq./l of beer. With the GWP values between 510 and 876 g CO2 eq./l, the estimates in the present study fall well within this range. The variations in the results reported in different studies are due to various factors, including different geographical locations, packaging types and recycling rates, processes included in the analyses, transport modes and distances in the supply chain as well as allocation methods. Notwithstanding these differences, all studies found that the manufacture of packaging and raw materials are key contributors to the GWP, accounting for 18–78 % and 6–42 % of the total, respectively. By comparison, in the current study packaging is found to contribute between 19 and 46 % and the raw materials 47 and 63 %.
Comparison of the other impacts with the literature is more constrained as only one study used the CML method (Narayanaswamy et al. 2004) to estimate the impacts. As can be observed in Fig. 9, there is a reasonably good agreement (despite the influencing factors mentioned above) in the results except for the AP which is higher in the study by Narayanaswamy et al. Since the results in the latter are provided only in an aggregated form, it is not possible to discern the reasons for this difference. Another significant difference can be noticed for the HTP, particularly for the beer in aluminium cans estimated in the current study. As discussed earlier, the HTP is particularly high due to emissions of polyaromatic hydrocarbons from manufacturing of cans; Narayanaswamy et al. only considered the impacts averaged for both glass bottles and aluminium cans so that the current-study results are more specific.
Improvement opportunities
The results from this study suggest that the main hotspots in the life cycle of beer are the raw materials and packaging. The greatest contributor to the impacts from the former is malted barley and from the latter, the glass bottle. Therefore, they should be targeted for enable greatest improvements in the supply chain.
There are many technological options that could be implemented to increase the efficiency of producing barley, including precision-farming to reduce the use of fertilisers and increased energy efficiency of drying the malted barley. The latter can be achieved by using a greater proportion of renewable energy, displacing fossil fuels in the barley drying process. However, because of a lack of disaggregated data on barley, it is not possible to quantify the effect of this on the environmental impacts. Instead, we turn our attention to improvement options related to glass bottles.
One of these would be to introduce returnable bottles in the UK. A study of returnable beer bottles in Portugal found that the reduction in impacts is dependent on the percentage of bottles returned and the number of times the bottle can be reused (Mata and Costa 2001). For example, at 50 % reuse and up to six reuse cycles, the returnable bottle had lower impacts for most categories considered, except for eutrophication and ozone layer depletion. At 85 % reuse, the contribution of returnable bottles was larger than that of non-returnable for all the environmental impacts. Another study based in the UK (Amienyo et al. 2013) considered reuse of glass bottles for carbonated soft drinks (CSD) and found that by reusing the bottle only once, the GWP of the CSD would be reduced by about 40 %. Further savings in the GWP could be achieved by increasing the number of reuses, although the benefits are not as significant after the second reuse and they gradually level off after about eight reuses. The results from that study also suggested that if the glass bottles were reused three times, the GWP of the drink packaged in glass bottles would be comparable to that packaged in aluminium cans. The study concluded that there was a clear case for reusing bottles between one and five times, depending on the economics. However, introducing reusable beer (or any other) bottles in the UK would require a completely new infrastructure, financial incentives and behavioural change, all of which are non-trivial. Currently, there are no plans to make this change in the UK.
In addition to returnable bottles, increasing the share of canned beer could be considered as a measure to reduce the impacts of beer, particularly steel cans, as they have lower impacts than glass bottles and aluminium packaging (see Fig. 6). The use of steel cans would lead to a reduction in most impacts, ranging from 12 % for the EP and POCP to 54 % for the FAETP; the GWP would be lower by 39 %. However, the HTP would increase by 41 % and, if aluminium cans were used, by 88 %, also with the MAETP being 48 % higher. Consumer perception is also a factor that must be taken into account when considering a possible change of packaging, as many believe that bottled beer has better quality (Wilcox et al. 2013) while some believe that cans, particularly aluminium, may change the taste of beer or pose a health risk (Blanco et al. 2010). Furthermore, the economic and social impacts on the glass packaging industry would have to be weighed against the environmental benefits.
Therefore, we consider below the following two options which currently may be more feasible: increased recycled glass content and light-weighting of bottles.
Recycled glass content
In the UK beer sector, increasing the recycled content of glass bottles has been identified as a key initiative for improving environmental sustainability (Dalton 2011). To examine the effect of glass recycling on the environmental impacts, a range from 0 to 100 % recycled glass content has been considered. From the results in Fig. 10, it can be observed that, for every 10 % increase in the amount of recycled glass content, the GWP is reduced by around 3 %, amounting to a saving of 24 g CO2 eq./l of beer. The saving is due to lower energy consumption for bottle manufacturing and reduced amount of post-consumer waste sent to landfill. For the other environmental impact categories (except water demand), every 10 % increase in the recycled glass content results in savings ranging from 0.5 % (EP) to 2 % (ADP). On the other hand, if no glass was recycled, the GWP would be 19.5 % higher than currently (at 85 % recycled content).
Bottle light-weighting
In addition to increasing the recycled content, light-weighting of glass bottles is another key focus area for the beverage packaging sector (Cakebread 2011) and several multinational brewing companies, including AB InBev and Heineken, have reportedly achieved bottle weight reductions from 7 to 25 % (WRAP 2011).
The results from this study suggest that reducing the weight of glass bottles by 10 % results in the GWP savings of 5 % or 40 g CO2 eq./l of beer (Fig. 11). The savings arise from lower energy and material consumption for the manufacturing of glass bottles and reduced impacts from transport. For the other environmental impact categories (except water demand), every 10 % increase in the recycled glass content results in savings ranging from 0.5 % (EP) to 7 % (MAETP).
Life cycle costs
As shown in Fig. 12, the life cycle costs of beer packaged in glass bottles and aluminium cans are close, estimated at 14.12 and 14.37 pence/l, respectively. This is because aluminium cans are more expensive to make but the costs of filling and waste management are higher for glass bottles so that the total costs almost even out. The LCC of steel cans are lower, estimated at 12.72 pence/l. By comparison, a litre of beer retails in shops for £1–£4, depending on the type, quality, retailer and region, with an average retail price of £1.83 (HMRC 2013). Canned beer is typically cheaper than bottled, mainly for two reasons: beer quality and consumer perception, as mentioned earlier. However, the retail price of beer includes the government alcohol duty of 18.74 pence per each percentage of alcohol, so for a typical beer with 5 % of alcohol, this amounts to 93.70 pence/l (UK Government 2014). The retail price also includes the VAT at 20 % and an (unknown) retail mark-up. Thus, assuming the average LCC cost of 12.31 pence for bottled and canned beer (excluding post-consumer waste management), the total cost with the alcohol duty and VAT is around £1.27/l. This suggests a difference between the average retail price and total beer costs, with the alcohol duty and VAT included, of £0.56/l of beer. However, these results should be used as a guide only since the cost data used here are generic and may not necessarily reflect the full costs. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the costs of packaging could be underestimated as they do include only the costs of packaging materials, excluding the costs of manufacturing the bottles and cans.
The main contributor to the LCC are the raw materials, adding between 63 % (glass bottle and aluminium can) and 72 % (steel can) to the total. This is mainly due to the costs of barley, hops, process water and light fuel oil which account for 86 % of the costs of raw materials. The next largest cost contributor is packaging, ranging from 8 % for steel cans, to 13 % for glass bottles to 19 % for aluminium cans. This is in agreement with the contribution to the environmental impacts, which are also largely due to the raw materials and the packaging (see section 3.2). The remaining costs are due to waste management (9–12 %), followed by beer production (6–7 %) and transport (3 %).
Environmental impacts and costs of beer production and consumption in the UK
In this section, we discuss the environmental impacts and costs of beer produced and consumed in the UK. The impacts and costs have been estimated by scaling up the results for 1 l of beer to the annual UK production.
As mentioned in the Introduction, around 4.5 bn litres of beer were produced in 2014 in the UK of which 14.6 % was exported (Key Note 2014). In addition to the beer produced in the UK, 19.7 % of beer was imported, with the overall import-export balance of around 5 %. Therefore, for simplicity, we consider all the beer produced in the UK to be consumed in the country, excluding both the imports and exports.
Out of the total volume of beer produced, around 2.26 bn litres were sold in the UK off-trade market and 2.24 bn litres in the on-trade outlets (BBPA 2015). The majority of off-trade beer (around 72 %) is packaged in cans and the rest in glass bottles (Key Note 2010). There are no specific data on the market share between aluminium and steel cans used for beer but, according to Alupro (2015), 90 % of drink cans in the UK are made of aluminium; therefore, this percentage is assumed here, with 10 % of cans being made of steel.
For the on-trade beer, there are no figures on the volume sold as draft (from casks or kegs), bottled or canned. The only data available are related to the value of different types of on-trade beer which indicate that around 90 % is sold as draft and the remaining 10 % as bottled and canned beer (AB InBev and Bar-Expert, undated). Therefore, these percentages are assumed to correspond roughly to the volume of draft and packaged beer, respectively, for the on-trade market estimates. The casks or kegs used for the draft beer are not considered as they are reused many times. Beer refrigeration at on-trade outlets is also excluded because of a lack of data. Furthermore, there are no data on the share of bottled and canned beer in the on-trade market so that the same percentage is assumed as for the off-trade market (73 % canned and 27 % bottled). For the canned beer, the same assumption is made with respect to the market share between the aluminium and steel cans as for the off-trade market (90 and 10 %, respectively).
The total annual environmental impacts and LCC of beer production and consumption in the UK are shown in Fig. 13. The annual life cycle costs are estimated at around £553 million, which represents 3.2 % of the total beer market value of 17.12 bn estimated by Key Note (2014). Therefore, based on these estimates, the value added in the beer sector appears to be very significant.
Regarding the environmental impacts, water consumption is estimated at 1.853 bn hl, or 5.3 % of the actual amount of water consumed in the UK annually (3.51 trillion litres at 150 l per day per capita (Defra 2008)). For further context, this is equivalent to 74,120 Olympic-size swimming pools or 60 % of the volume of Windermere, the largest lake in England. Primary energy consumption is equivalent to 0.56 % of UK PED consumption of 8.62 million TJ (DECC 2104b). The total GWP amounts to 2.16 million tonnes of CO2 eq./year, contributing 0.85 % to GHGs generated from consumption of UK-produced goods and services, estimated at 255 mt CO2 eq. (Defra 2013a). These findings are congruent with Garnett (2007) who estimated that beer contributed 0.96 % to UK GHG emissions of 179 mt CO2 eq. in 2003/2004.
It is more difficult to put the other impacts into context but a comparison can be made with a previous study by the authors on the consumption of carbonated soft drinks (CSD) in the UK (Amienyo et al. 2013). The results in Fig. 14 show that the impacts from the annual beer consumption are on average 45 % higher than from CSD, despite the consumption of the latter being 30 % higher than that of beer. The difference in the GWP between beer and CSD is 31 %. However, the greatest difference is found for the freshwater and marine ecotoxicity potentials (92 and 80 %, respectively). This is mainly due to the higher impacts from the raw materials used for beer production than those used for CSD. On the other hand, the lowest difference between the two beverages is for the human toxicity (11 %). The reason for this is that the main source of this impact from CSD is the packaging while for the beer it is both the raw materials and the packaging—although much more packaging is used annually for the CSD than for beer (6.4 vs 2.5 bn litres), the total HTP from the beer production process and its packaging still outweigh the impacts from CSD packaging.
It can also be seen in Fig. 13 that the off-trade beer market is the main contributor to most impacts, including the HTP (86 %), MAETP (79 %) and GWP (67 %). It also contributes 58 % to the life cycle costs. This is largely due to the packaging used in the off-trade sector, particularly aluminium cans which contribute 48–93 % of the impacts from off-trade beer. Bottled beer is the second largest contributor to the off-trade beer impacts. In the on-trade sector, draft beer is the main contributor to most impacts (62-91 %), largely because of its high market share. The only exception is the HTP for which beer in aluminium cans is the main hotspot, contributing 58 %. As mentioned earlier, this is due to the emissions of polyaromatic hydrocarbons in the production of cans.
These results can provide useful evidence which could serve as a basis for the beer industry and government-led sustainability initiatives. An example of the latter is found for the carbonated soft drinks industry, with the Defra initiative aimed at gathering evidence for the development of a sustainability roadmap for the sector (Defra 2013b), which motivated our previous work on the impacts from that sector (Amienyo et al. 2013).