Sustainability charter
Huyghe Brewery is aware of its responsibility to society and the environment in general. Producing in a way that respects the environment, the safety and health of workers and the population is a basic principle of the brewery's activities. Huyghe Brewery wishes to do business sustainably in order to offer future generations a bright future.
End poverty everywhere and in all its forms
Support for sustainable projects: A house is made available free of charge for the non-profit organization Habbekrats in Wetteren (2017)
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture (People)
Strengthening local agriculture and short chain: A test is being conducted cultivating barley near Melle in collaboration with ILVO (2019)
Ensure good health and promote prosperity for all ages (People)
- Including engagement in local health organizations: All plastic caps from the barrel line are collected separately to support the organization that’s training guide dogs for the blind (Belgian center for guide dogs in Tongeren) (2018)
- Realization of health actions: 10 new electric forklift trucks have been purchased (less emissions for the people) with ergonomic seats, windows, and doors for people in the courtyard. (2019)
Ensure equal access to quality education and promote lifelong learning for all (People)
- Collaboration with schools: In 2017, 2018 and 2019, several students did an internship and / or completed their thesis in the brewery lab. Several students were also assisted with securing internships and environmental assignments.
Achieve gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls (People)
- Promote the promotion of women to management positions: Despite the fact that the brewing world is predominantly a men's world, a female CEO was chosen for the sales branch in USA (2019)
- Engagement in local diversity projects: Sponsoring a G-football tournament in Melle for young people with disabilities (2019)
Ensure access and sustainable management of water and sanitation for everyone (Planet)
- Sustainable water use: new bottle washing machine (2009)
- Sustainable water use: new pasteurization tunnel with cooling tower (2010)
- Sustainable water use: new bottle filler (2011)
- Sustainable water use: placing automatic CIPs (2011-2015)
- Sustainable water use: installing new larger yeast tanks and beer tanks (2009-2013-2016-2017)
- Sustainable water use: new barrel line (2016)
- Sustainable production patterns: A study has been made for a second natural gas steam boiler instead of the second light oil boiler (2017)
- Sustainable water use: use rainwater for sanitary (2017)
- Sustainable raw material management (waste reduction / processing): The new barrel line has had a reorganization of the waste collection. To this end, new waste receptacles have been purchased for the various waste streams on the barrel line. (2017)
- Sustainable water use: An optimization has been made of the CIP to the filtration ( 2020 )
- Sustainable water use: A cooling installation has been purchased for the sampling station in the brewing hall ( 2020 )
- Sustainable water use: A complete sewerage system has been installed to collect rainwater that can be used for various purposes. ( 2020 )
- Reduced water consumption for humidifying the seals pumps brew room. Pots have been placed on them to circulate the water in a closed circuit ( 2021)
- Less water consumption for cooling the filler vacuum pump. The water will circulate in a closed circuit and be cooled by air ( 2021)
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for everyone (Prosperity)
- increase part of renewable energy: solar panels have been placed on the roof 1 and 2 with a capacity of 154kWp (2011)
- Rational use of energy: new brewing room (no centrifuge, blower on trotting pipe,….) (2011)
- Rational use of energy: fine bubble aeration in the biology of water treatment (2012)
- Rational use of energy: new high-efficiency refrigeration compressors (2013)
- Increase share of renewable energy: solar panels have been installed on roof 4 with a capacity of 157.5 kWp (2014)
- Rational use of energy: new air compressor (2014)
- Increase share of renewable energy: solar panels have been placed on roof 5 with a capacity of 179.92kWh (2017)
- Production of renewable energy from residual heat: There will be a study of the storage of heat from the brewing hall in water (2018)
- Improve resource efficiency, production, and consumption: Using rainwater to clean sludge thickening and rotoseeve from water treatment (2019)
- Rational use of energy in the company: Expansion of energy monitoring with steam flow meters (2019)
- Reduction of greenhouse gases from the production process: A CHP has been installed that runs on the biogas from the anaerobia. This makes electricity and hot water ( 2021 )
- All south-facing solar panels have been realigned to an east-west configuration allowing additional solar panels to be laid. ( 2022)
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. (Prosperity)
- Integrating social economy and customization at the brewery: integrating tailor-made company De Merel in the brewery (2015)
- Improve the quality of the working environment at the brewing room: Additional silos are placed, which reduces the manipulation of malt in 50 kg bagged goods that otherwise have to be poured into small silos (2017).
- Visual integration of the brewery: An ivy fence has been set and planted at the separation of the brewery from the pedestrian road (Eyckerwegel) (2017)
- Striving for a healthy working environment: A winter vest has been purchased for every staff member (2018)
- Striving for a healthy working environment: The dining room has been completely renovated (kitchen, painting, ceiling, heating, ...) (2018)
- Striving for a healthy working environment: Purchase of an extra automatic line for the 5L party kegs. ( 2020 )
-Improve efficiency, production and consumption of resources: Optimizing rainwater consumption ( 2021)
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and drive innovation (Prosperity)
- Improving mobility around the brewery: The sheltered workshop has come to work on site in the brewery to reduce the truck traffic (2015)
- Improve mobility around the brewery: A larger tank for NaOH has been placed and the small tanks are now being used to ship other chemicals in bulk. (2017)
- Reducing the negative impact of the business activities on the quality of the living environment: solving bad smell around the brewery hall (2018)
- Reducing the negative impact of business activities on the quality of the living environment: placing a noise barrier around refrigeration compressors (2019)
- Reducing the negative impact of business activities on the quality of the living environment: a silencer has been installed on the air line of the water treatment blowers ( 2020 )
- Reducing the negative impact of the business activities on the quality of the living environment: A blower was purchased and placed inside the brewing room for the unloading of the malt blowing trucks ( 2020 )
-Quality of the living environment: The smell plume from the brewing room has been diverted to the center of the brewery causing and even more condensation and also diluting this to the neighbors. ( 2022)
Reduce inequality in and between countries (Prosperity)
- Enabling religious experience: Flexibility during Ramadan (change of team, ...) and possibility of leave during the sugar festival (2019)
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safely resilient and sustainable (Prosperity)
- Improve mobility around the brewery: purchase new steam boilers that use natural gas instead of supplying light and heavy fuel oil (2014-2018)
- Improving mobility around the brewery: The sheltered workshop has come to work on site in the brewery to reduce truck traffic (2015)
- Relationship with the neighbourhood and society: all neighbourhood residents within a radius of 100 meters from the plot boundary of the brewery are invited to an annual neighbourhood meeting (2017-2018-2019)
- Sustainable mobility for freight transport: A press has been purchased for both cardboard and foil so that it can be transported in bales instead of loose in a container (2018)
- Sustainable mobility: 5 new sugar tanks have been purchased so that fewer deliveries will take place (2019)
- Sustainable mobility: Employee bicycle lease. All employees will have the opportunity to lease a bicycle in order to make commuting greener.( 2021)
- Social commitment: heritage conservation. A complete plan has been drawn up to build an interactive museum while preserving the old brewing facilities ( 2022)
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns (Planet)
- Circular economy: a nanofiltration has been installed after the water treatment to reuse 65% of the treated wastewater for cleaning bottles, tanks and installation (2016)
- Ensuring sustainable water management: A study has been made to monitor and calculate all partial flows of water in production per product unit with alarms for excessive consumption (2017)
- Reduce food waste and food loss in production / supply chain: A density meter has been placed on the pipeline to the bottling plant to perfectly detect the beer-water transitions and thus have less beer loss (2018)
- Circular economy: A study has been done to tackle water purification. For the expansion of the water purification, an attempt was made to reuse as much as possible and to work as sustainably as possible. There will be a use of rainwater, additional reuse of treated wastewater, production of biogas, reduction of sludge, reduction of electricity consumption,…. (2018)
- Reducing food waste and food loss in production/supply chain: A large hammer mill has been purchased in the brewhouse, which reduces malt consumption by 4% ( 2020 )
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact (Planet)
CO2 footprint reduction: warming up a room for refermentation in the bottle with recuperated heat (2009)
- CO2 footprint reduction: new brewhouse with energy recuperation on the cooking kettle (2011)
- CO2 footprint reduction: new natural gas steam boiler with condenser and flue gas cooler to replace the old heavy fuel steam boiler (2014)
- Reduction of CO2 footprint: insulation of steam valves with mats (2015)
- Reduction of CO2 footprint: new barrel line (2016)
- CO2 footprint reduction: continuous brewing (2017)
- CO2 footprint reduction: high gravity brewing of lager (2018)
- Use climate-friendly coolants: A study has been made to switch off the cooling on freon and switch to cooling on CO2 (2018)
- CO2 footprint reduction: new warm room for refermentation in bottle with underfloor heating with recuperation heat (2018)
- Carbon footprint reduction: new natural gas steam boiler with condenser and flue gas cooler to replace the old light oil steam boiler (2018)
- Reduction of CO2 footprint: By brewing high-gravity beer, we can further reduce electricity and steam consumption. (2018)
- Carbon footprint reduction: Purchase anaerobia which will decrease the total electricity consumption of the brewery by about 10% (2019)
- Reduction of C02 footprint: The secondary cooling circuit of the lagering tanks has been completely renewed ( 2020 )
- Reduction of CO2 footprint: The beer for the secondary fermentation in the bottle is heated with recuperated heat instead of electricity ( 2020 )
Preserve and make sustainable use of the oceans, seas and maritime resources (Planet)
- Avoiding ocean acidification by reducing CO2 emissions: a study has been conducted into the feasibility of a small CHP fed with biogas from the anaerobic (2019)
- Sustainable water consumption: through the energy monitoring system we try to tackle problems related to water losses and water consumption. (2018)
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of ecosystems, manage forests sustainably, combat desertification and land degradation and reverse and halt biodiversity loss (Planet)
- Sponsoring construction of forest in Landskouter near Bos + (2019)
- Sustainable management of forests: preventing deforestation by focusing on lighter use of cardboard. ( 2020 )
- Engagement in local biodiversity and nature projects: Biodiversity barley Belgomalt. Barley malt grown locally and on lands of regenerative agriculture promoting biodiversity is purchased; ( 2022)
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, ensure access to justice for all and create effective, accountable and open institutions at all levels (PEACE)
- Complaint handling: A study is being conducted to remove the possible smell nuisance from the brewing hall in Brusselsesteenweg (2017)
- External communication: a sustainability report has been prepared (2017)
- Good dialogue between business environment / society: A neighbourhood meeting was organized in the brewery (2018)
- Demonstrate conformity with legislation: an environmental book is made with calendar (2019)
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development (Partnership)
- Engagement in international projects on poverty: 3-monthly contributions are paid to Fairtrade Belgium and fairtrade products are also purchased for the entire Mongozo range (2018)
- Collaboration between companies, organization and governments on knowledge transfer of sustainability: A congress for the green deal has continued in the brewery with the different breweries. The Huyghe Brewery made the hall available for free and explained the brewery's sustainable strategy. (2018)
- Universal health insurance: Hospitalization insurance has been purchased for all employees. ( 2022 )