Heineken has announced its first harvest of barley from its “large-scale regenerative agriculture model”.
The crop has been produced on 25,000 hectares of land managed by 200 members of Vivescia, the French cooperative farming and food processing group. The number of producers involved is expected to double each year for the next two years, said Heineken. This year’s harvest will be available to Heineken’s operations in France.
The so-called Transitions programme for regenerative barley is an “outcome-based farming approach” that aims to protect and improve soil health, biodiversity, climate, and water resources while supporting farming business development. Impacts on carbon, soil, water, air, biodiversity, and farmers’ livelihoods are all being measured and tracked.
“By removing financial and technical barriers, this programme will help the growth of regenerative farming, introducing a groundbreaking model for sustainable grain production,” the brewer said.
Heineken has a target to reduce its scope 3 FLAG (forest, land and agriculture) emissions by 30% by 2030. Agriculture represents approximately 21% of the company’s total carbon footprint of 15.3MtCO2e. Scope 3 emissions stood at 14.1MtCO2e in 2023, a fall of 12% on 2022 and 20% against the 2018 baseline, according to Heineken’s annual financial and sustainability report, published in February.
“By investing in regenerative agriculture practices, we aim to not only reduce our environmental impact but also to strengthen the resilience of our supply chain for the future,” said Hervé le Faou, senior director global Procurement at Heineken.
Heineken has had its short- and long-term targets verified by the Science-based targets initiative (SBTi). It has also joined the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) forum to support the development of emerging methodologies for nature-related science-based target setting and disclosures. This year it has committed to carry out “a comprehensive assessment of our supply chain and direct operations, which will serve as the foundation for developing our biodiversity approach”.
