Achievement highlights in 2020
We continued our sustainability journey in 2020 not only by developing the new long term strategy with ambitious targets, but also by continuing
our efforts to reduce our footprints and potential impacts for our consumers/customers, our products and our people following up on our short
term targets for 2022 and many other initiatives.
Establishing our new Senior Leadership
Team, appointing a Senior Vice President
for HR and moving Group CSR reference
to our CEO are major organizational im-
provements to ensure the right balance
between commercial, people and sus-
tainability aspects.
Our policy and objectives on diversity and
inclusion was approved by the BoD dur-
ing ๎๎๎๎. Currently focusing on gender
but to be expanded to other business
critical aspects.
We are improving on diversity in our mar-
kets' management teams, where we are
above ๎๎% of the underrepresented gen-
der, i.e. women. An analysis of equal pay
across the Group shows that we do not
have significant variation when compar-
ing pay to competences, seniority, age,
gender, etc.
Collective bargaining and freedom of
association is a basic right for all our
employees, but in all the markets where
we operate. Royal Unibrew is currently
establishing an overview of the percent-
age of the workforce covered by collective
agreements.
Organizational
development and diversity
We are currently awaiting approvals to
build a Solar Park in Faxe, Denmark,
aiming at providing ๎๎๎% renewable en-
ergy for our entire power consumption in
Denmark. In addition, we are looking at
geo-thermal energy project at our Lahti
site in Finland.
Investing in renewable
energy
Royal Unibrew has succeeded in decou-
pling volume growth from carbon emis-
sions. In the period from ๎๎๎๎ to ๎๎๎๎,
we have had a decrease of ๎๎% kgCO๎/
hl while having a volume increase of
๎๎%. Our success is a combination of
our keen focus on optimizing our energy
consumption year-on-year, the positive
results of phase one of a large energy
efficiency project at our Lahti site in
Finland and specifically between ๎๎๎๎
and ๎๎๎๎ there was a change in product
mix due to COVID-๎๎ with a shift from
the more energy consuming brewing
process to less energy consuming soft
drinks production.
Royal Unibrewโs production facilities are
not located in water scarce areas, but
as water is an important raw material
for us, water preservation and quality
are key. Reducing water consumption
remains a priority and the consumption
of water per hl has decreased by ๎% from
๎๎๎๎ to ๎๎๎๎ and in a like-to-like compar-
ison by ๎๎%.
Decoupling growth
year-on-year
All our primary packaging contains information on
material, recycling and deposit return, which is one
of the ways we engage with consumers to close the
loop. The effect can be measured in the year on
year improving return rates in the well-functioning
Deposit Return Systems in Finland, Denmark and
Lithuania. From ๎๎๎๎ to ๎๎๎๎ the overall increase
in returned cans and bottles was ๎-๎ % on average
across the three markets. The return rate in ๎๎๎๎
was in a range of ๎๎ to ๎๎% for PET, ๎๎ to ๎๎ % for
cans and for glass between ๎๎ to ๎๎%.
Royal Unibrew is working on down gauging (re-
moving) unnecessary material and increasing the
content of recycled material in all our markets.
Resulting in a reduced carbon footprint from pack-
aging and elimination of unnecessary material. In
the table on short term targets on packaging ma-
terial, we have indicated the achievements across
the Royal Unibrew on r-PET (๎๎%), r-paper (๎๎%)
and r-carton (๎๎%). A few examples of material
reduction we did in ๎๎๎๎ was e.g. down gauging of
a standard ๎๎cl can, resulting in annual material
savings of ๎๎ ton alumina. Another example is re-
duction in plastic material in PET bottles, where
we in one market alone are saving ๎ ton plastic per
year by a design change. A third example is trays
where we in DK alone, have reduced the corrugated
carton by ๎๎๎ ton per year.
Packaging materials reused,
reduced and recycled
Royal Unibrew wants to provide choice
for the consumers, but we are aware
of the global challenges formulated by
WHO regarding obesity as well as alco-
hol abuse. We take our responsibility very
seriously, in our product declaration, in
our marketing of products and not the
least when we develop new products. We
want to offer products with great taste
for every occasion, including a balanced
launch of regular, no and low products
in different categories. Between ๎๎๎๎ and
๎๎๎๎, the volume growth for no and low
products out-performed regular prod-
ucts, significantly for both soft drinks,
beer, cider and RTD. For our CSD, water
and energy portfolio, this is also reflect-
ed in a ๎% general reduction in calory
content per ๎๎๎ ml across our markets
during the same period. For beer, RTD
and cider the average alcohol percentage
are clearly reduced in Denmark, Finland
and the Baltics between ๎ to ๎%.
NO and LOW sugar,
calories and alcohol
ROYAL UNIBREW Annual report 202051
Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR โ Achievement highlights in 2020