Christian Susan is Industrial Development Officer at UNIDO and presents UNIDO and Carlsberg/Baltika Breweries' partnership and comprehensive investment programme.

Why do you think improving water usage efficiency is beneficial to Baltika Brewery Company?
In line with the Carlsberg Group CSR policy Baltika Breweries as a member of the Carlsberg Group are committed to improving water efficiency. While the Carlsberg Group as one of the globally leading beverage industry has the know-how to improve the water efficiency in the breweries the Carlsberg Group partnered up with UNIDO to provide TA to agro-industrial suppliers to equally enhance water efficiency along the supply chain.

How is the company collaborating with Baltika to address catchment areas currently under water stress?
The company is Baltika. Through the GEF supported Public Private Partnership local governments and regional institutions for water resource management will be assisted in the assessment and modeling of water resources for the sustainable conjunctive use of surface and groundwater and joint public-private local community integrated watershed management programmes developed and implemented.

How prepared is the company on treating the vast majority of wastewater from the production process?
To make all Baltika Breweries become fully compliant with the Russian regulations on wastewater treatment and effluents they are being equipped with state of the art wastewater treatment plants. These investments are financed by the Baltika Breweries themselves and no GEF funds are used for this endeavor.

What is the role of the government on partnering with the company and other business agencies to help achieve the set goals of Baltika Brewery Company on W&E efficiency and sustainability?
Lessons learned from the implementation of pilots will be disseminated at regional and national level and used for the development of economic instruments and regional/national policies, draft/model economic instruments designed to incentivize the sector and its supply chain to reduce pollution, reduce GHG emissions and optimize water and resource utilization will be developed and draft/model national policies, legislation institutional reforms which promote and mainstream application of cleaner and resource efficient production principles in the sector and its supply chain will be developed.

What are the challenges facing the company on implementing the W&E efficiency approaches?
With the prevailing low price regimen for energy in Russia and the low water prices many investments in resource efficiency do have a low IRR.

How can this Zaragoza Conference in your opinion contribute to improving the W&E nexus?
The conference can contribute to raise awareness and disseminate information that it is possible to improve economic as well as environmental performance by applying resource efficient cleaner production technologies and that investments in these technologies can have a very high ROI.