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Heineken Spain has announced that its fac­tory in Jaén is the first in the coun­try to run on 100-per­cent renew­able energy, due in large part to bio­mass gen­er­ated by local olive groves.

The fac­tory will receive up to 6,000 tons of prun­ing waste annu­ally from olive groves within a 90-kilo­me­ter radius, con­tribut­ing 70 per­cent of its energy needs. The remain­ing 30 per­cent will come from locally-pro­duced solar energy.

Speaking at the announce­ment of the mile­stone, Guillaume Duverdier, pres­i­dent of Heineken Spain, called it ​“a great step in our com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­ity and in our ambi­tion to be the green­est brew­ery.”

“This project, which in addi­tion to car­ing for the envi­ron­ment, pro­motes the fight against cli­mate change and ben­e­fits local farm­ers, brings us closer to our com­mit­ment to make all of our beers with zero emis­sions by 2025,” he added.

Besides pro­vid­ing a new rev­enue stream for local olive grow­ers, who oth­er­wise would have seen the prun­ing from the har­vest go to waste, the project will save in the region of 4,000 tons of CO2 emis­sions, equiv­a­lent to the energy con­sump­tion of the nearby town of Martos, with 6,650 homes.

The com­pany also notes that all the treated waste­water pro­duced in the fac­tory will be fed back into the wet­lands of Doñana National Park, as part of Heineken’s com­mit­ment to the cir­cu­lar econ­omy.

The fac­tory, which pro­duces 29 mil­lion liters of beer annu­ally, has been in oper­a­tion in Jaén since 1921 and employs 120 peo­ple.

Jaén is the cen­ter of the olive grow­ing indus­try in the coun­try. The small province in Andalusia is respon­si­ble for about half of the country’s olive oil pro­duc­tion and habit­u­ally yields as much olive oil as Italy, Greece and Portugal com­bined.

• Heineken Spain
• ABC Sevilla