Hot weather may make you thirst for a cold one, but the world’s biggest brewer wants to do its part to keep the planet from getting any warmer.
Anheuser-Busch InBev will source 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025, the company announced in a statement on Tuesday. The company has a busy eight years ahead of it to complete its goal. The transition will shift 6 terawatt hours of electricity away from fossil fuels — nearly the same amount of energy the entire country of Spain uses in a month, Bloomberg reports.
AB-InBev plans to generate 15-25 percent of its power on its own from solar panels. The remaining 75-85 percent will be sourced by wind and solar farms. It’s enough to make AB-InBev the largest corporate direct purchaser of renewable electricity in the global consumer goods sector, the company states.
The energy shift comes at a time when some countries are reconsidering climate accords. The U.S. is no longer expected to hit the climate goals set by the 2015 Paris Climate Conference — a conference that AB-InBev specifically references in the opening paragraph of its press release. The release states that the company’s energy goals “will support efforts to achieve climate targets under the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21) agreements.”
Notable numbers mentioned in the press release that support the positive impact the transition will have: Renewable energy will reduce AB-InBev’s carbon footprint by 30 percent, and have a similar effect as taking 500,000 cars off the road. In Mexico, where the move to renewable will happen first, total renewable energy in the country will increase by 5 percent.
“Climate change has profound implications for our company and for the communities where we live and work,” AB InBev CEO Carlos Brito says in the statement. “Cutting back on fossil fuels is good for the environment and good for business, and we are committed to helping drive positive change. We have the opportunity to play a leading role in the battle against climate change by purchasing energy in a more sustainable way.”