Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCRs) are guiding documents and rules intended to provide transparency on the environmental impact of consumer products, and they often influence EU environmental policies as well as consumer information. The European Commission has published the latest PEFCRs on their website, including PEFCRs that focus on the beverage industry—Beer, Wine, and Packed Water.

The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) had members from leading global beverage companies involved in the research and creation of the recently released Beer PEFCR, a comprehensive report on “how to calculate the environmental impact of a (packed) beer in an unambiguous way.” BIER partnered with Brewers of Europe, Blonk Consultants, and the EU Pilot Project Team to provide technical inputs throughout the process.

While the Beer PEFCR is a European project, it represents a global standard for beer, and knowledge that supported the rule came from global companies and stakeholders across the world. Paul Bruijn, BIER member and Senior Global Lead of Safety and Environment at HEINEKEN who worked with the Commission on the Beer PEFCR, says “The Beer PEFCR enables beverage companies around the world to set a solid baseline for supply chain impact and supports setting science-based targets, so we [beverage companies] can define effective targets to meet the challenge of climate change.” The PEFCR efforts are well-aligned with BIER’s mission and the promotion of consensus driven approaches to environmental sustainability for beverage companies and supply chain partners. The result is harmonized calculation methodologies across the value chain (‘barley to consumer’), enhanced data sets, prioritization of improvement areas, and greater transparency on the performance of companies. BIER plans to continue collaboration with the European Commission on beverage sector PEFCRs and related initiatives.

BIER is working to incorporate PEF outputs into a new revision of the BIER Beverage Industry Sector Guidance for GHG Reporting, Version 4.0 which is scheduled for release in September 2018.

View the Beer PEFCR here.