CSR in Supply Chains of Brewing Industry - Technology Management for Sustainable Production and Logistics - page 112

in Ǚ ywiec maintained the 2012 value at a level close to the previous year, whereas
at the other breweries the amount of the emitted wastewater grew (Corporate
Social Responsibility Report of Grupa Kapitałowa Ǚ ywiec S.A. for 2012 ).
4 Conclusions
The European brewing industry undertakes actions in response to a range of objec-
tives connected with energy efficiency, limiting carbon dioxide emission and water
consumption as well as changes in packaging ways. This is an element of the pol-
icy realised by the European Union in aid of sustainable development. Investments
made in co-operation with scientific institutions lead to a decrease in natural
resources consumption, reduction of the amount of waste produced and consist-
ent recovery of secondary raw materials created during beer production processes
(Jirovec and Calleja 2013 ).
Breweries in the whole world, including the two largest beer producers in
Poland, i.e. Kompania Piwowarska and Grupa Ǚ ywiec, demonstrate commit-
ment to natural environment protection. The brewing sector has been working
on guidelines concerning the Best Available Techniques (BAT), which empha-
sise the role of sustainable management and which may serve as a point of ref-
erence for engagement in achieving environment protection aims (Jirovec and
Calleja 2013 ). The brewing sector in Spain has produced a comprehensive docu-
ment of Best Available Techniques (BATs). The brewing sector and the Ministry
of Environment combined their expertise to design the most accurate and up-to-
date BATs possible. In addition to providing guidance on best techniques, the
document also makes the point that sustainable management is important to be
included in any economic growth plan and should be a factor in any decisions
going forward. Further benefits of BAT documents are that they can be used as
common reference resources to make realistic commitments to environmental tar-
gets in the future (Donoghue et al. 2012 ).
Supply chain management in a sustainable way is a great challenge for brew-
ing enterprises. A trend towards replacing the classical supply chain with a value
chain is currently being observed. The latter make it possible for breweries not
only to reduce business and image-related risk, but also to improve the quality
of products and build stable relationships with stakeholders. Breweries that want
to develop a responsible supply chain system have numerous tools at their dis-
posal. Apart from the Supplier Codes of Conduct, used, among others, by Grupa
Ǚ ywiec, there are also many platforms and IT tools which index potential suppli-
ers (Corporate Social Responsibility Report of Grupa Kapitałowa Ǚ ywiec S.A. for
2012 ). Kompania Piwowarska uses the SEDEX platform, which enables to gather
and report information from suppliers, which is divided into four categories:
work standards, health and safety, environment, and business ethics (Kompania
Piwowarska Sustainable Development 2013 ). Another IT solution allowing to
manage a responsible supply chain within which a brewery produces and delivers