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300 jobs were created in the construction of a new brewhouse – Brewhouse No 4 – at the Diageo site at St James’s Gate in Dublin, which opened in September 2014. The expansion of the site also secured employment for the foreseeable future and doubled production capacity to around 3 million pints per day.

€169 million was invested in the development of Brewhouse No 4, which is one of the most technologically advanced and environmentally sustainable in the world. To achieve its sustainability goals, Diageo worked with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). SEAI is the national energy authority whose role involves promoting energy efficiency to reduce energy usage and accelerating the development and adoption of technologies to exploit renewable energy sources.

From the outset the Diageo design team worked with SEAI to develop a new NSAI energy standard for Brewhouse No 4. This NSAI energy standard, which helps companies minimise energy consumption and reduce environmental impact, will save the drinks company around €2.5 million per annum. Those savings equate to an Olympic sized swimming pool of water every 30 hours, carbon reductions of 4,000 cars a year, and zero waste sent to landfill.

Check out some interesting stats about the project:

• At 10,000m2, Brewhouse No.4 is the world’s biggest stout brewery
• This expansion will boost total capacity at St. James’s Gate by nearly 50 per cent
• The construction of the new brewery was the largest construction project in Ireland in 2012
• 2 million man hours went into the project
• The new brewery is capable of producing over 1 billion pints a year

Diageo’s work with the SEAI design team earned it the Leadership prize in the Energy Awards in 2013.  Diageo is a long-term member of SEAI’s Large Industry Energy Network (LIEN) and is part of the Energy Agreement Programme (EAP) to adopt the energy standard ISO 50001, a standard also originated by SEAI in Ireland.

SEAI’s Energy Efficient Design is a methodology that assists organisations to design, construct and manage projects to achieve minimum energy consumption.  EED can minimise energy usage and reduce the running costs of a building or process. It can also help reduce the capital cost of the project through design changes.

And some interesting stats about Diageo:

• Diageo now exports over €1 billion of products to 130 countries worldwide
• 35% of global beer for Diageo is now produced at St. James’s Gate
• Diageo’s Irish operations support 20,000 jobs in the local economy

SEAI’s professional assistance is free to Irish companies and the public sector as part of the government’s plan to reduce the nation’s energy usage by 20% by 2020.

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