"Great beer using the least amount of energy and water - simple"

The Sharp's approach to the environment is simple and honest. We recycle all of our raw material waste through some novel environmentally efficient channels.

For example:

• A local dairy herd consumes thirty tonnes of our spent grain every week.
• Hungry pigs devour almost five tonnes of protein rich Sharp's yeast per week.
• Cornish beef cows drink up to 30 litres of waste beer per week.
• Many of our empty bottles are collected from across Cornwall and turned into drinking glasses by the Green Glass Company.

Our Brewery at Rock is one of the UK's most energy efficient with sophisticated heat exchangers recovering energy at each process stage. We even recover the natural heat generated by fermentation.

Water is used sparingly throughout the Brewery and we are proud to have one of the best water usage to beer output ratios in the industry, using under 3 litres of water for each litre of beer produced, compared to an industry average of 7 litres of water per litre of beer made.

Sharp’s were one of the first UK brewers to use lightweight bottles, reducing around one tonne of CO2 emissions per year from our delivery fleet.

Sharp's does not brew organic beer. Process yield from organic malted barley is considerably less than for non organic barley and organic hops are generally air freighted into the UK from as far afield as New Zealand. We prefer to brew great beer from quality ingredients using the least amount of energy and water.

In 2011, we have plans to install an anaerobic digestion plant which will allow us to convert our liquid effluent waste into methane which in turn will be used to generate electricity for the national grid. The plant in question is forecast to produce in diesel equivalent terms 100,000 litres per annum. This relates to a C02 saving from fossil fuels of 410 tonnes per annum.