A Cleaner World : Extract from the 2019 Annual Report

Climate change has far-reaching consequences for our business and the communities where we live and work, from water scarcity and energy constraints to reduced food security and increased health risks. Our own factory emissions, the packaging and trade refrigeration of beverages, all have a significant carbon footprint. We, therefore, strive for a cleaner world where natural resources are shared and preserved for the future.

We are Part of Agriculture

We have taken a farmer-centric approach in our public commitment to ensure 100% of our direct farmers will be skilled, connected and financially empowered. Today we work with over 9 000 farmers including both commercial, communal and smallholder farmers. A contracting split of 91:9 (in terms of tonnage) between the communal and commercial sectors was achieved for 2018 in sorghum production. In barley production 47 commercial farmers were contracted. We continue with efforts to integrate marginalized communities in the scheme and maintain mutually favorable terms. We engage directly with farmers in our supply chain to help them to improve productivity while conserving natural resources. We are creating secure, sustainable supply chains both for malting barley, maize and sorghum and other key agricultural raw materials such as sugar and juicing fruits. We are helping farmers increase profitability, productivity, and social development while reducing environmental impact. Efforts to develop improved varieties that address the ever-changing barley industry’s needs continue to be pursued. We partner staff from the department of research and specialist services in the ministry of agriculture. We collaboratively work with seed houses to develop new crop varieties suited to local conditions and work with farmers to improve their agricultural practices and operations. We believe technology has enormous potential to positively transform the future of farming and hence our focus on research. We are investing in key enablers and lasting programs that will help improve yields, profitability, and stewardship of natural resources.

Smart Agriculture through dedicated supervisory and extension Work.

Smart Agriculture is our flagship agricultural development program which is led by our agronomists to help growers improve their productivity, profitability, and natural resource efficiency. A key pillar of our contract schemes is providing farmers with the crop management protocols and training they need to successfully grow crops while also growing their businesses and improving their livelihoods. Our agronomists assess farming practices against weather, soil and market data and give insights to improve productivity and environmental performance.

TOWARDS A CLEANER WORLD

Climate change has far-reaching consequences for our business and the communities where we live and work, from water scarcity and energy constraints to reduced food security and increased health risks. Our own factory emissions, the packaging and trade
refrigeration of beverages, all have a significant carbon footprint. We, therefore, strive for a cleaner world where natural resources are shared and preserved for the future. We will work with suppliers, distributors, retailers, municipalities, and consumers to reduce emissions and waste across our value chain, and reuse and recycle waste and packaging and conserve water.

ADVANCING WATER STEWARDSHIP

Water quality and availability are critical to brewing and bottling our brands. Without water, there are no beverages. We must also be responsible stewards of water supplies for the communities where we operate. We continue with our efforts to drive water efficiencies in our verticalized operations, including malting, bottling and canning facilities. We listen carefully to major water conservation organizations and combine their knowledge with our scale and expertise to help ensure a reliable, clean supply of water, not only for ourselves but also for local communities. To guide our water conservation efforts, we actively engage with local experts on watersheds, water systems, and sustainable agriculture. These experts help us develop and implement strategies and measure the economic, environmental and social impacts of our efforts. In this respect, we have seconded our executives to work with Zimbabwe National Water Authority regional catchment area councils. Each year we make measurable progress in reducing the amount of water we use to brew beer and bottle our soft drinks and alternative beverages. We achieved this reduction
by creating efficiencies in on-site water use. We have also focused on managing our water-related risks, protecting local watersheds, investing in community water-access programs and engaging our relevant colleagues. We work with City Councils to address water infrastructure and maintenance challenges. We have provided equipment and support to Local Authority maintenance teams to restore water (and electricity) to the industrial areas where we operate when there are a water distribution and reticulation infrastructure challenge (e.g. pipe bursts).

2019 VOLUME SPLIT BY PACK TYPE %

We have begun by promoting and protecting returnable packaging, increasing the amount of recycled content in our packaging, generating less waste and recovering postconsumer waste, light-weighting our packaging, educating consumers, and partnering with others. The Group believes in the use of returnable glass bottles as a trusted and effective way to reduce the environmental impact of our packaging as they are much more resource-efficient than the one-way packages such as cans and PET. We are starting to uncover best practices in many areas but acknowledge that there is much more to learn. We also seek to minimize the amount of waste we send to landfill from our breweries through recycling initiatives, including using waste as fuel in our operations. Reducing post-consumer packaging waste is an industrywide challenge. We have partnered with local stakeholders to develop recovery and recycling solutions. The growth of the contribution of sorghum beer packaged in PET has increased the need for sustainable solutions to reduce litter from used primary packages such as PET and cans. We are working collaboratively with the environmental agency (EMA), local authorities and other environmental groups to intensify the education of consumers on segregation of litter, placement of litter in bins and general consciousness on a cleaner environment. The consumer waste cages that have been installed at major shopping centers are now being used to accumulate used cans and PET. The used cans are crushed and pressed into tin cake for export. The change over from steel to aluminum cans is largely complete, which creates secondary usage of the used cans. PetrecoZim PET recycling factory is fully functional and can absorb all material that is recovered and delivered to it. This has now created income-generating opportunities for waste collectors. We continued with the Make A Difference (MAD) campaign which enlists the support of community groups in taking care of the hygiene and cleanliness of the localities, discouraging littering particularly by motorists and the segregation of waste in the home. We are encouraging our employees to volunteer in the clean-up campaigns.

World without waste

The company borrows from the World Without Waste strategy of our global partners The Coca-Cola Company, with a goal of collecting a used bottle or can for every ONE that we sell. Our holistic plan focuses on the entire packaging lifecycle — from how packaging is designed and made to how it’s recycled and repurposed.

CIRCULAR PACKAGING

As one of the country’s largest purchasers of glass bottles, aluminium cans, and PET, we continue to champion a circular economy. In this regard, we aim to have 100% of our products in packaging that is returnable or made from majority recycled content. We aim to achieve our circular packaging vision through four key levers:

1. Recycle

• Increased recycled content in one-way packaging through supplier collaboration.
• Increase supply of recycled content through postconsumer waste recovery programs through local partnerships.
• Educate consumers to shift recycling attitudes. (MAD Campaign).

2. Reuse

• Promote and protect returnable packaging.

3. Reduce

• Reduce the amount of material we put into the market.
• Reduce our carbon footprint.

4. Rethink

• Explore the use of alternative materials, technologies and designs for adverse materials.
• Innovate and scale new materials and products designed for circular economy.