Africa’s First Carbon Neutral Brewery

Darling Brew, a craft brewery in the Western Cape and client of Ecolution Consulting, is now officially Africa’s first official carbon neutral brewery. The brewery is expected to offset a total of 687.96 tons of CO2 over the next year which will be equivalent to having eliminated the same amount of carbon from the environment as 17 829 tree seedlings having grown for 10 years.

The craft brewery, situated in the small town of Darling in the Western Cape, brews a wide range of popular craft beers that are now all carbon neutral through the process of offsetting their carbon emissions via responsible carbon capturing and reduction projects. We at Ecolution Consulting, are proud to have been involved in guiding Darling Brew through this process.

In order to become Africa’s first carbon neutral brewery, we assisted the brewery in calculating their carbon footprint by means of a greenhouse gas audit. This carbon footprint is then offset through impactChoice, a provider of end-to-end environmental sustainability solutions, who also ensure the emissions are offset via responsible carbon capturing and reduction projects.

The financial benefits of these Carbon Credit purchases are received by The Kariba REDD+ project in Northern Zimbabwe, which works with communities to rehabilitate forests and through sustainable farming practices whilst ensuring gender parity and social upliftment. REDD+ is an acronym for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and the carbon offsets carbon offsets are validated by the Verified Carbon Standard, the Gold Standard and the Plan Vivo.

We believe, however, that it’s not just about offsetting your impact, but first about reducing it as much as possible – and Darling Brew agrees. That’s why in addition to the offsetting process, we are currently working alongside the brewery to assist them in their sustainability journey.

The different areas of focus that we are guiding them through are:

  1. Waste management (diversion of waste from landfill, tracking and internal reporting)
  2. Energy and water sub-metering (investigation into major consumption and possible resulting efficiencies)
  3. Exploring energy and water alternative solutions
  4. Operational cleaning products review and sustainable alternatives
  5. Employee comfort (thermal comfort, daylight and glare)

Through identifying short and long-term sustainability strategies for Darling Brew, we can ensure that the brewery continues along their sustainability journey with intent. One of the short term strategies that the brewery has already implemented is the process of tracking and recording consumption and waste data to ensure that progress is being made at the. These statistics, which concern water, waste, energy and carbon are being shown in Darling Brew’s Tasteroom restaurant area for the public to see in order to spread awareness of their journey as a brewery to becoming sustainable.

Darling Brew’s Consumption Statistics visible in their Tasteroom

Darling Brew are serious about their sustainability mission, and have already implemented a series of sustainability initiatives in the brewery such as water efficient fittings, waterless urinals, ongoing recycling and food waste management. They have also implemented the use of upcycled furniture and recycled wood in the brewery and Tasteroom area.

Darling Brew have proven their commitment to becoming more sustainable through going carbon neutral, and we as Ecolution Consulting are excited to be a part of it!