When you pop open a drink, your main concern for the climate will likely be about recycling the bottle and lid. But what about the beverage itself? The beverage industry’s true environmental cost is often overlooked. While companies report some emissions, the sector routinely fails to account for their entire value chain. In 2022, the beverage industry was estimated to contribute around 3.8 percent of global CO2 emissions, primarily from raw material processing, packaging and transportation. That is roughly equivalent to 1.5 billion tons. However, this figure likely represents only 23-47 percent of the total figure, as Scope 3 emissions (those from the entire value chain) are notoriously underreported.
Mounting pressure from climate change initiatives, alongside rising energy and raw material costs, is now pushing companies to rethink how they produce their goods. And many are turning to digital solutions.
From data to decarbonisation
Digital technologies are offering new ways to boost sustainability in beverage production. The BeverGreen research project, which launched in May 2023 and is scheduled to run until April 2026, aims to develop a model to analyse energy and resource consumption as well as material cycles, particularly in brewing. It’s a collaborative effort involving several partners, with RIF Institut für Forschung und Transfer e.V. (Production Systems Department) carrying out the project processing and Bitburger Braugruppe, Augustiner-Bräu Wagner and the Technical University of Munich providing expertise, data and facilities.
Its premise is simple. As the old adage goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. For example, once it’s known exactly where energy is being used (and wasted), it’s possible to find ways to optimise processes and, therefore, reduce carbon expenditure. The key to this transparency is something called a “green digital twin.”
What’s a green digital twin?
Think of a digital twin as a virtual copy of something real—in this case, a brewery or a beverage production facility. A green digital twin takes this copy and then goes a step further by tracking and analysing specifically environmental data. It looks at, for example:
- How much energy is being used by different machines and processes
- How much and when a facility generates its own energy, if at all
- How much carbon dioxide is being emitted by the facility
A green digital twin is useful because it saves money, time and resources testing materials and processes in real-time. Instead, functions can be tested in a safe, virtual environment.
How BeverGreen works
Imagine your company’s data as a massive library where all the books are piled up at random. Finding specific information, like your exact energy consumption for a particular product, would be a nightmare. That’s a common challenge for many businesses today.
BeverGreen is trying to solve this by creating a super-organised library specifically for all the energy-related information within a beverage manufacturer. This includes energy and resource consumption, production and logistics processes and operational data from its partners. As well as functioning as an organisational tool, it translates this often messy data into clear, standardised language that computers can easily read. This is then used to create the green digital twins that help lay the groundwork for pinpointing exactly where and how to improve.
Once the project draws to a close in 2026, the hope is that these findings will be actively shared with scientists and industry alike and fuel further development, shaping a more sustainable future for beverages and beyond.
Progress so far—and hope for the future
The BeverGreen project has made significant strides since its official start in May 2023. Key progress includes regular consortium meetings, a hackathon in January 2024 to advance the green digital twin and integrate energy data and an important meeting in Regensburg in March 2024 to discuss key milestones and the further development of the technology. The project has also continuously engaged with the public, participating in events like the “Day of Digital Technologies 2024” in Berlin and presenting its progress at the Hannover Messe 2024.
Ultimately, BeverGreen’s aim is to build a replicable model for how the beverage industry—and potentially others such as food, manufacturing and retail—can transition to more resource-efficient and carbon-neutral operations. The project demonstrates that, no matter how historic or traditionally analogue the industry, digital transformation is crucial for unlocking sustainability.
