Starting next year, the East African Breweries Limited (EABL) will embrace new sustainability reporting standards, the IFRS S1 and S2, ushering the company into stricter levels of disclosures on climate action.

IFRS S1 is a global reporting standard, which addresses general sustainability-related disclosure requirements. IFRS S2 focuses on climate-related disclosures and offers organizations a better tool for aligning their financial reporting with best practices and stakeholder expectations.

"Our goal is to begin incorporating IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 disclosures in our reporting cycle starting from 2025, with full alignment anticipated by 2027. Our teams are actively working to ensure a seamless transition, including updating our reporting systems, training staff, and engaging with external advisors to support this integration," EABL's 2024 Sustainability Report states in part.

New standards to fortify EABL's approach to sustainability

The brewer, which has a presence in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania explained that IFRS S1 and S2 standards "will not only fortify our approach to sustainability, but also provide a clearer and more comprehensive view of our environmental and social impacts."

EABL's move to adopt IFRS S1 and S2 standards comes just weeks after Pan-African lender Absa Bank Kenya announced plans to embrace the new standards starting this year.

According to EABL's 2024 Sustainability Report, the company spent a total of Kes5.9 billion on businesses owned by youth, women, and Persons with Disabilities in the past financial year as part of driving inclusion and diversity in its vast supply chain across the region.

The amount represents 7.9 percent of EABL’s total supplier base, and surpassed the initial target of six percent. The company said it is committed to promoting economic inclusivity and empowering underrepresented groups, by integrating them into the company's supply chain.

"This is significant and can be redirected to support vulnerable members of the population who face historic, institutionalised barriers to access to markets. By intentionally targeting our spending, we can generate substantial positive impact for these communities," the report states in part.

EABL added that next year, it will continue onboarding diverse suppliers onto its supply chain, including our farmer partners with disabilities across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In Uganda for instance, Uganda Breweries Ltd aims to increase its recruitment of persons with disabilities to 12 for a 12-month work experience in a partnership with the Mastercard Foundation.

This year’s report highlights the effect of the company’s investments in renewable energy, water conservation, and community empowerment initiatives, and progress on meeting the targets.

Speaking at the event to launch the report, The Attorney-General Dorcas Oduor stated, "As one of Kenya’s oldest and biggest companies, EABL has done a lot of pioneering work around ESG in the country and the region. I’m delighted when I see the work you have done and the progress towards sustainability and to prioritise the rights and dignity of every person, irrespective of their gender, age, physical ability or geographical location.”

Read also: Absa sets the pace on new sustainability reporting standards for NSE firms

Women in leadership roles

EABL’s Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Jane Karuku, added: “In 2024, we made significant strides in our commitment to gender equality by increasing the number of women in leadership roles across the business. Women now make up 45 percent of our leadership team, a reflection of our dedication to creating an inclusive environment that fosters equal opportunities for all.”

The company aims at achieving 50 percent representation of women in leadership roles by 2030. What's more, the report shows that EABL met its target of ensuring that 50% of beneficiaries from our community programmes are women, aligning with UN's Sustainable Goal 5.

Other outstanding highlights of the company's sustainability journey this year was the work done to empower underprivileged communities through skills development. In 2024, EABL offered business and hospitality skills training to 9,951 individuals, surpassing its annual target by 68 percent.

Additionally, through the Learning for Life Initiative, the company empowered 4,570 women - against a target of 2,500 - with training in business and hospitality skills including budgeting, timekeeping, negotiation, and mixology to enable them to get employment or set up their own businesses.

Use of water

On the environmental front, EABL reduced the amount of water used in manufacturing its products to 2.93 litres per litre of packaged product, beating the target of 3.07 litres per litre. The company increased the amount of water replenished to 403,908 cubic metres, from 361,217 cubic metres last year.

The full utilization of the biomass plants at the breweries in Kampala, Kisumu and Nairobi has helped reduce EABL’s carbon footprint by reducing the company’s direct carbon emissions from 28.29 kilotons last year to 21.4 kilotons.

EABL also successfully implemented the project where they take back used spirit bottles from the market and in F24 collected more than 17 million bottles, with more than 500 youth employed to collect, wash, sort and store them before they are reused.

With the biomass plants in Nairobi, Kisumu, and Kampala now fully operational, EABL has increased the use of renewable energy to 75.49 percent of the total power used in its operations. 

Responsible drinking efforts

On championing responsible drinking, EABL educated 68,084 people out of a target of 68,000. One of the initiatives was via Kenya Breweries Ltd's digital campaign dubbed ‘Usichome’ that aims at inspiring behaviour change through humour by highlighting the potentially embarrassing situations people could find themselves in if they didn’t follow DRINKiQ.

To add on, the report shows that EABL's SMASHED campaign surpassed the annual target by 48 percent with the brewer sensitizing 376,933 young people on the dangers of underage drinking.  SMASHED is an alcohol education programme, developed by Collingwood Learning and implemented across the brewer's regional markets.

 These engagements are targeted at children, parents, teachers, and the broader community, promoting discussions on how to protect the youth from alcohol consumption.

Data shows that to date, EABL has trained over 766,000 young people through SMASHED partnerships with different stakeholders.

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