24 September 2021 – Heineken Malaysia Berhad (HEINEKEN Malaysia) received the Highly Commended Award at the Sustainable Business Awards (SBA) Malaysia 2020/2021, Asia’s only award series committed to sustainability, which comprehensively assesses corporate sustainability programmes in Malaysia.
During a virtual awards ceremony on 23 September 2021, the award was presented by YB Dato’ Sri Mustapa Mohamed, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department for Economic Affairs. HEINEKEN Malaysia was highly commended for the strength of their sustainability programmes and their progress. SBA Malaysia aims to increase awareness of sustainable business best practices and demonstrate how sustainable business benefits companies, our environment, and all stakeholders.
Receiving the Highly Commended Award, Roland Bala, Managing Director of HEINEKEN Malaysia said, “This is the third consecutive year where HEINEKEN Malaysia has won at SBA. This strengthens our track record as a responsible brewer, where we remain steadfast to our Brew a Better World sustainability commitments across three pillars – environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and responsible consumption.”
“Across our organisation, we put sustainability at the heart of what we do. We have a bold and ambitious commitment to cut carbon emissions, targeting to achieve net zero in production by 2030 and across the value chain by 2040. As of 2020, we have reduced emissions by 15% since 2014 and developed a roadmap with clear targets in improving energy efficiency and adopting renewables. We have also balanced more than 100% of the water used in our production in 2020, 10 years ahead of our 2030 commitment. At our Sungei Way Brewery, we have reduced water consumption by 15.5% since 2014. Our 2030 target is to reduce this by a further 29% to 2.6 hectoliters per hectoliter of beer produced. Since 2017, we have achieved zero waste to landfill by recycling and upcycling our by-products and production waste,” he added.
SBA is organised by Global Initiatives, assessing businesses in terms of sustainable best practices in 12 categories, including sustainability strategy, community, energy and water management, supply chain, community, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and ethics among others. This was the awards’ third edition in Malaysia supported by PricewaterhouseCoopers Malaysia, The World Business Council for Sustainable Development and BCSD Malaysia, the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology, Novafusion, Thought for Food, The Malaysian Reserve and Green Growth Asia Foundation.
Renuka Indrarajah, Corporate Affairs & Legal Director of HEINEKEN Malaysia said, “We are raising the bar in our Brew a Better World sustainability initiatives in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as we look ahead to a decade in which more ambitious collective action is the only way forward. Beyond environmental sustainability, HEINEKEN Malaysia champions inclusion and diversity for social sustainability. We ranked second out of 312 Bursa listed companies in the Board Diversity Index 2021, with 43% of our Board of Directors being women, and have a 50:50 male to female ratio in the middle to senior management positions.”
“To advocate responsible consumption, we commit 10% of the Heineken®️ brand’s media budget annually to promote this message, whilst reinforcing “When You Drive, Never Drink” through the brand’s global F1 partnership. Externally, to grow our local communities, we launched our HEINEKEN Cares community food aid programme with a target to deliver 150,000 meals to vulnerable communities by December 2021. Our Tiger Sin Chew Chinese Charity Concert has raised more RM355 million for schools since 1994.”
To learn more about HEINEKEN Malaysia’s sustainability initiatives, please visit www.heinekenmalaysia.com and www.facebook.com/heinekenmalaysiaberhad. Find out more about SBA 2020/2021, at https://sustainablebusinessawards.com/sustainable-business-awards/.
