SIBA Best Green Business
Our vision is to become the country's leading sustainable
brewery
Sustainability has become an increasingly important part of what we
do at Hobsons and over the past couple of years we have strived to
reduce our effect on the environment by embracing sustainable
technologies and harnessing the environmental assets where we live.
In 2010 we took a step closer and won the SIBA Best Green Business
award, being recognised for our comprehensive sustainability
package.
Our Sustainable thinking ...
At Hobsons we don't just follow others when it comes to
sustainability we also create innovative solutions where there were
originally barriers. For example when we were told there were no
technologies to simultaneously heat our bottle conditioning room
and cool our barrel store utilising a ground source heat pump
system we designed our own solution. For the past three years we
have created an imaginative yet environmentally efficient system
that recovers heat from the cold store return. Four boreholes were
sunk providing a constant 11°C of water that is then compressed for
heat or cooling or both, it is so effective that we now heat the
offices using the same system.
To enhance the efficiency of the ground source heat pump we
installed an 11kw GAIA Wind turbine, a pretty twin blade design
that powers about a third of the brewery's requirements. When the
turbine is used to power the compressors that provide
heating/cooling from the boreholes a super efficient system is
created.
We have installed a rainwater harvesting system to capture
surplus rainwater from the extensive roofs of our barrel and bottle
store and utilise this grey water for vehicle washing, general
wash-down, hand wash and toilet flushing.
As well as large-scale technologies we have also embraced small
changes that all contribute to sustaining our environment. Amongst
these changes are the introduction of light weight beer bottles
that have reduced our packaging waste. We are also working with the
Design Council on new ideas for recycling and producing packaging
and fabric from spent grains and hops.
All of the technologies we have introduced are working hard to
reduce our environmental impact and to date we have made a
reduction of 17.5 tonnes of C02 waste.
Whatever we do, we will always strive for best practice in our
brewing and bottling processes and we will continue to be
innovative in the ways in which we support our environment.
View the following video filmed at the site of the Hobsons Wind
Turbine by the Marches Energy Agency, low carbon communities -
Ashden Award winner.
