The Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen celebrated Carlsberg’s topping-out ceremony at the plant that is supposed to make the brewery the first in the world to virtually eliminate water wastage.

Following a screening and evaluation by Carlsberg’s Integrated Supply Chain, the Fredericia brewery was selected as a test site for its first “Total Water Recycling Plant”. On Monday, 29th of June, Carlsberg celebrated a topping-out ceremony on the location of the water recycling plant.

“Our focus has always been on optimizing resource management and water consumption reduction at the brewery in Fredericia has been an integral part of this drive. The new water recycling technology that we are implementing in the brewery allows us to recycle almost 90% of all process water and thus reduce our water consumption by 50% in Fredericia. Fredericia can, therefore, become an important learning platform for all our breweries, and that makes everyone involved in the project very proud,” says Arjun Bhowmik, VP, Production, Western Europe, Carlsberg Group.

The water recycling plant is intended to reduce the average water consumption at the brewery from the already low current level of 2.9 hl of water/hl of beer to 1.4 hl of water/hl of beer. The new plant is also estimated to reduce the brewery's energy consumption by 10% through its own biogas production and hot water recycling. This will further contribute to the realization of Carlsberg's sustainability program, ’Together Towards Zero’, which consists of four ambitions: zero carbon footprint, zero water waste, zero irresponsible drinking and a zero accidents culture. Each of these is underpinned by individual measurable targets to be achieved by 2022 or 2030.

The state-of-the-art total water recycling plant is a partnership project initiated through the public-private partnership DRIP (the Danish partnership for Resource and water-efficient Industrial food Production). Peter Haahr Nielsen, Managing Director, Carlsberg Denmark, hosted the topping-out ceremony together with several of the partners, involving Danish veterinary, environmental, and food authorities as well as universities and technology suppliers, ensuring that the plant meets the high Danish foods and environmental standards.