(Yicai) Nov. 4 – Budweiser Brewing Company APAC today successfully delivered a circular packaging forum for its value chain partners at its Putian Brewery, Fujian Province of China. The forum reinforces Bud APAC's circular packaging approach of the “reduce-reuse-recycle-recover” concept for the low carbon transition. It promotes innovative solutions for the Chinese beer sector, specifically focusing on the cans and glass, the primary beer package materials. 

With the support from the Putian local government, leading brewing and sustainability experts and industry associations, the forum explored best practices of sustainable recycling and packaging to tackle the challenges of current resource scarcity, improve the circularity of packaging materials and eliminate waste. 

For circular packaging, one of the crucial pillars of the Company’s 2025 Sustainability Goals and 2040 Net Zero Ambition, Bud APAC has developed unique solutions, from packaging design and post-consumer recovery to public education and awareness building. During the forum, Bud APAC launched its lightest aluminium can for beer in China, with its 330ml can weighing only 9.57g, 4% lighter than the industry average. The average carbon footprint per can is only 185g, nearly 100g lighter than the 2017 baseline. Bud APAC’s aluminium packaging has helped to reduce more than 40,000 tons of carbon emission, compared to 2017 baseline, through continuous efforts, with carbon emission per can down by over 30%. 

Bud APAC is also actively addressing the challenges of aluminium can same-grade recycling by introducing Can-to-Can recycling, a closed-loop solution for used beverage cans (UBC), capitalizing on technological innovation and collaboration with industry partners. Bud APAC has also actively fostered carbon reduction transformation among its upstream partners through various initiatives, including encouraging aluminium can suppliers to utilize solar energy in production, recycle and reuse waste heat, and adopt the Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO)system, to manufacture environmentally friendly and energy-efficient green aluminium cans.

“As the largest brewer in the region, we are fully committed to enhancing our efforts in promoting circularity to mitigate our impact on the climate and environment while empowering our value chain partners to reduce their carbon emissions. Only through working together can we realize our ambition of achieving net zero across our value chain by 2040,” Jan Clysner, Vice President of Sustainability & Procurement of Bud APAC, said at the event.

Some highlights of the Company’s circular packaging achievements in 2022:

• 63.2% of Bud APAC’s total packaging volume was in returnable packaging or made from a majority of recycled content, and 51.3% of our primary packaging was made of recycled content.
• More than 80% of the returnable bottles were collected and refilled with beer after sanitization across APAC. 
• The Company reduced the use of packaging materials by 8,473 tons including bottles, cans, and other packaging materials. 
• Aiming to make Corona the first plastic-neutral beer brand, the Company recycled 155 tons of plastic waste from the ocean. 

Budweiser Brewing Company APAC Limited (“Bud APAC”) is the largest beer company in Asia Pacific, with leadership positions in Premium and Super Premium beer segments. It brews, imports, markets, distributes and sells a portfolio of more than 50 beer brands, including Budweiser®, Stella Artois®, Corona®, Hoegaarden®, Cass® and Harbin®. Bud APAC has expanded beyond beer into new categories such as ready-to-drink, energy drinks and spirits in recent years. Through its local subsidiaries, Bud APAC operates in its principal markets, including China, South Korea, India and Vietnam. Headquartered in Hong Kong SAR, China, Bud APAC operates 47 breweries and employs more than 26,000 colleagues across APAC. 

Bud APAC is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code “1876” and is a constituent stock of the Hang Seng Index that is incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands. The company is a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev, the public company based in Leuven, Belgium and listed on Euronext which has over 600 years of brewing heritage and an extensive global presence.