OUR PROGRESS

Our progress

Irrespective of what packaging is made from or how it’s made, too much packaging ends up in landfill.  We are committed to becoming more sustainable by design, eliminating waste from our value chain and reinventing packaging by developing solutions to reuse materials, creating innovative solutions to grow sustainably.

This includes achieving zero waste to landfill in 2020 across all sites, pioneering partnerships like BACALL to create a circular aluminium economy and replacing multi-packs of Guinness cans with 100% sustainably sourced cardboard.

A new plant planned in the UK is expected to use 95% less energy to provide 100% recycled aluminium for Guinness cans in Europe & the US - BACALL

Future goal

Through our products and processes, we aim to design the change we know our industry needs and the world wants. Decades of focus has resulted in big strides in reducing our environmental impact but we won’t stop until we’ve met our 2030 goals.

Building a circular economy >

Our progress

Environmental stewardship lies at the heart of our sustainability efforts. We aim to achieve net zero carbon in our direct operations by embedding energy efficiency into our culture and working towards using 100% renewable energy to fuel and heat our operations.

• In the last decade, St. James's Gate Brewery cut emissions by 18% (2013-2023) and reduced beer brewing energy by 41% (2007-2023).


• In 2022, we introduced the first zero-emission vehicles to our iconic Guinness Quality fleet in Ireland.

Future goal

Key to helping us achieve net zero carbon in our direct operations across the world is embedding energy efficiency in our culture and working towards using 100% renewable energy, fuel and heat.

Building on our existing programmes, we are committed to only using renewable energy by 2030, including:

• Converting our energy renewable alternatives such as bioenergy and solar

• Creating additional renewable energy capacity to power our sites

• Moving our vehicles on to renewable and low emission alternatives

In order for us to reach our sustainability commitments across our supply chain, we will support opportunities that reduce our emissions produced by the materials we buy, the products we source and the services that we need to make beautiful Guinness. This includes working with our suppliers to accelerate decarbonisation, prioritising low carbon transport and supporting sustainable practice for the producers of our raw materials and ingredients.

Our progress

Water is the basis of life and our most precious ingredient, something that’s been recognised since Arthur Guinness himself, defended the St James’s Gate brewery water source with a pickaxe in 1775. We have a strong track record of managing our impact on water and we continue to do more, recognising the interdependencies between water and the impact on communities, supply chains and environment.

Future goal

By 2030, our aim is to use 30% less water per pint we brew and 40% less in water stressed areas on average across our direct operations. Within water-stressed areas, we will replenish more water than we use in our operations. We aim to achieve these water reductions by employing the best available solutions to reduce water abstraction and increase water circularity.

Since 2007, we have more than halved our water usage at our St. James’s Gate site – saving the equivalent of 25 billion pints.

Our progress

Communities across Ireland and Africa, together with Guinness, are forging a brighter future through farming. We plan on becoming sustainable by design through regenerative agricultural practices. This means making our agricultural supply chains more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.

At the heart of this approach is partnership. We are already working with Irish and African farmers on their journey to becoming more sustainable in their operations. Through the delivery of essential training in regenerative agriculture and sustainable farming methods, we remain committed to the people who produce the precious ingredients that go into making beautiful Guinness.



In 2022, Guinness announced it was undertaking one of the most ambitious regenerative agriculture pilots to take place in Ireland with 44 participating farms.

Learn more here >

Future goal

We aim to provide farmers from our local sourcing communities with the support and resources they need, including training in regenerative agriculture and designing programmes that help restore degraded landscapes. We are taking action globally, rolling these programmes out across Ireland and Africa.