Carbon Footprint for Breweries and Food & Drink Manufacturers

Carbon Footprint for Breweries and Food & Drink Manufacturers in 2026

The carbon footprint of breweries and food and drink manufacturers has risen sharply on the ESG agenda. UK supermarkets — Tesco, Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, and Co-op — are all requiring supplier Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions data as part of their Scope 3 reduction programmes. B Corp certification, which requires measuring all GHG emissions, has also driven carbon footprinting across the craft brewing and artisan food sector.

A typical mid-sized UK craft brewery (10,000 hl/year) emits 500–1,500 tCO2e — much of it from steam generation, refrigeration, and ingredient supply chain.

What Makes Food & Drink Carbon Accounting Unique?

Food and drink manufacturing has several emission sources not found in typical office-based businesses:

Unique Scope 1 sources: - Steam boilers — brewing, cooking, and pasteurisation require high-pressure steam from gas boilers - Refrigeration — cold rooms, conditioning tanks, distribution refrigeration use significant electricity and have refrigerant leakage emissions - Compressed air — bottling, filling, and packaging lines run on compressed air (energy-intensive) - Wastewater treatment — trade effluent with high BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) generates methane at treatment - Process gas combustion — direct flame for cooking, drying, roasting

Unique Scope 3 sources: - Category 1 — Ingredients: Barley, hops, yeast, malt, sugar, fruit, meat, dairy all have significant embodied carbon; agricultural raw material emissions can dominate a food manufacturer's total footprint - Category 4 — Upstream transport: Ingredient delivery, packaging delivery - Category 12 — End of life: Glass bottles, aluminium cans, cardboard packaging

Emission Sources in a Brewery: Step-by-Step

Scope 1 — Direct Combustion

Gas boiler (steam for brewing): - A 10,000 hl brewery uses approximately 150,000–400,000 kWh of gas for steam - 300,000 kWh × 0.183 kgCO2e/kWh = 54.9 tCO2e

Refrigerant leakage: - Brewery conditioning tanks and cold stores use ammonia (NH3) or R-404A refrigerant - R-404A GWP: 3,922 — even a 1 kg leak = 3.9 tCO2e - Annual F-gas records from maintenance contractor required

Company vehicles (delivery vehicles): - A brewery with own delivery fleet: 3 trucks × 30,000 litres diesel/year = 90,000 litres × 2.683 = 241.5 tCO2e

Scope 2 — Electricity

Brewing and food manufacturing are electricity-intensive: - Refrigeration, centrifuges, filling lines, compressed air, packaging — continuous operation - 10,000 hl brewery: 500,000–900,000 kWh/year electricity - 700,000 kWh × 0.207 = 144.9 tCO2e

Solar PV opportunity: Brewery and factory roofs are ideal for solar PV — high daytime electricity demand aligns well with solar generation profiles.

Scope 3 — Ingredients (Category 1)

For food and drink manufacturers, ingredient emissions often exceed Scope 1 and 2 combined:

Barley emission factors: - Malting barley: approximately 0.3–0.5 kgCO2e/kg (farm to malthouse gate) - A 10,000 hl brewery using 300 tonnes of malt: 120–150 tCO2e Category 1

Hops: - Dried hops: approximately 2.0–5.0 kgCO2e/kg (high agricultural footprint) - 5 tonnes of hops: 10–25 tCO2e

Glass bottles: - Primary glass production: approximately 0.6–0.9 kgCO2e/bottle - 1 million bottles/year: 600–900 tCO2e Category 12

Supermarket Sustainability Questionnaires for Food & Drink Suppliers

UK retailers with active supplier carbon data programmes: - Tesco: Requires Scope 1, 2, and 3 via CDP supply chain or direct questionnaire - Marks & Spencer (Plan A): Supplier decarbonisation programme — requires GHG Protocol-compliant data - Sainsbury's: Net Zero by 2040 supply chain target — Scope 3 data collection from Tier 1 suppliers - Waitrose/John Lewis: Tier 1 supplier environmental data annually - Co-op: Fairtrade and sustainability questionnaires including carbon data

What supermarkets ask for: - Scope 1 and 2 (mandatory, required for all qualifying suppliers) - Scope 3 Category 1 (purchased goods/ingredients) — increasingly required for food suppliers - Net zero commitment and target year - Specific product carbon footprint (PCF) for key SKUs — leading-edge ask

B Corp Carbon Requirements for Breweries

B Corp certification requires measuring all GHG emissions including F-gases. The B Impact Assessment (BIA) Environment section asks: - Total Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions in tCO2e - Progress toward a GHG reduction target - Renewable energy percentage

The B Corp community has a strong brewery presence — over 100 UK craft breweries are B Corp certified or in process. Measuring your carbon footprint via DeCarbonOPS feeds directly into the BIA Environment section answers.

Worked Example: UK Craft Brewery (8,000 hl/year)

Per hectolitre: 125.5 kgCO2e/hl — above the industry best-practice target of <50 kgCO2e/hl, primarily due to glass packaging.

DeCarbonOPS calculates full Scope 1, 2, and 3 for food and drink manufacturers. Enter your energy consumption, refrigerant data, ingredient quantities, and packaging volumes. The platform produces a GHG Protocol-compliant Carbon Passport and CSRD-ready PDF report — accepted by supermarket sustainability portals and suitable for B Corp applications. Free for your first annual report.