MyShout

The quest to

go green could be a cause of concern for brewers across Europe, says Tony Jennings

One of the most popular traditional names for an English pub, the Green Man, takes on a new meaning for our industry in a world where the search for carbon neutrality is becoming the holy grail, and the pilgrimage towards this beatified state means managing and reducing the corporate carbon footprint in the cause of making our businesses environmentally-friendly.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, and I embrace the new religion as fervently as anybody - but be careful. There are those out there who, under the guise of this need to shrink the footprint, will use it to halt or at least damage the massive upsurge in interest drinkers are currently showing in excellent home and foreign beers.

Let me explain. For some time now, there has been a proposal kicking around in Brussels to introduce an energy-saving directive that, if implemented, would mean that brewers throughout Europe would be told by some EU jack-in-office how much energy they will be allowed to use to produce a litre or pint of beer.

Now, I do know that because of the complex way it is brewed Budvar will require 20% more energy to produce than the Euro-fizz norm, and for the smaller Czech breweries the energy input is even higher. Compliance would cost millions, put the smallest units out of business and degrade the quality of the beer, not the least because of a drastic shortening of fermentation times.

I have been talking about Czech brewing because that's my turf, but the challenge is going to be Europe-wide and for all quality beers being produced by micro, small and medium-sized brewers. I see no reason, given the unquenchable lust to dominate every corner of our existence that the EU exhibits, why the same requirements will not be extended to wine and spirits and food products generally. I can't believe that such prescriptions will bring joy to the Slow Food movement, for instance.

A couple of years ago the EU said that if the proposal is implemented it would in the early stages be voluntary, but we know where voluntary ends - in sanctions. Global warming and the carbon footprint will almost certainly have reinvigorated this odious proposal and the lobbyists of Big Brewing will certainly encourage it. What an opportunity to have those companies devoted to brewing quality beers without compromise branded as enemies of the new carbon-neutral faith! In recent years, craft breweries have triumphed over the marketing hyperbole of Big Brewing, but now they could be threatened with liquidation by Big Bureaucracy masquerading as a protector of the environment.

I quite understand if you are thinking that our business has enough on-going problems to worry about rather than some chimera of a problem still hiding in the long grass.

Well, remember that chimera could be the new version of the green man - not the vigorous Hagrid-like figure that we see on the inn signs, but instead some Gollum-like figure of an inspector from the EU, hell-bent on destroying one of the few decent things we still have left - great beers richer in their diversity than anywhere in the world. Then put the wines and the spirits and the really serious food in his bag and it gets even scarier.

Tony Jennings is chief executive of Budweiser Budvar UK