Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (ABI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Anheuser-Busch InBev Sustainability Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Ms. Ezgi Barcenas, Chief Sustainability Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab in the Presentations page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of these risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 17th of March 2023. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Jessie, and welcome, everyone, to our Sustainability Webcast. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Ezgi and I walk you through the progress we made across our sustainability initiatives in 2022 and how these initiatives are enabling our commercial vision and fulfilling our company purpose to create a future with more cheers. While some believe that sustainability-related initiatives are at odds with growth and profitability, we view them as one of the biggest economic opportunities. We believe that putting sustainability at the forefront of our value chain will ultimately help us to drive superior value creation for all stakeholders and create shared prosperity from the local communities in which we operate. As a part of our commercial strategy, we focus on 8 sustainability priorities that are critical to our business and to the communities where we live and work. And these priorities are centered around 3 core attributes that are inherent to the beer category: inclusive, natural and local. Beer is inclusive in how we strive to improve livelihoods and increase access to opportunity across our value chain and in the types of products we offer. Beer is natural. As we are a company based in nature with products made from simple ingredients, and we work with nature to develop resilience where it's needed most. Beer is local. With more than 500 local brands in our portfolio across nearly 50 operating countries, the success of these local economies is our success, and we continue to invest in their well-being. Our value chain is deeply rooted in local communities and natural ecosystems around the world from thousands of farmers to millions of retailers to our billions of consumers across the world. Our diversified footprint and global reach has helped guide our approach to sustainability. We work closely with stakeholders across our value chain towards reaching our goals and ambitions while creating shared prosperity. We strive to embed ESG into our ways of working, starting with our Board and senior leadership. Our Board's oversight includes a proof of strategies and review of sustainability performance. And in 2022, they received multiple dates on ESG matters. We operate through a Teams of Teams approach, creating cross-functional ownership and collaboration. Internal committees, including the sustainability council, diversity, equity and inclusion council, human rights steering committee and Global Smart Drinking community of practice enable us to manage ESG topics that span across functions and geographies while providing greater visibility and accountability. To drive progress and foster ownership, we cascade ESG-related targets tied to annual variable performance-related compensation from the highest levels of our company to the operating units in the breweries. In 2022, more than 3,000 colleagues carry targets linked to delivering our ESG strategy. Among our senior leadership team, this includes Ezgi and myself, as well as our Chief Supply Officer, Chief People Officer, General Counsel and our zone leadership teams. I'd now like to hand it over to Ezgi to share a bit more about the progress we made in 2022.

Thank you, Fernando. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Before I take you through each of our 8 priorities, I want to emphasize that we're not focused on building a sustainability strategy, but rather a business strategy that is more sustainable. And you can learn more of our approach and progress across these priorities in our ESG report launched on March 2 available on our website. First, I would like to start with climate. Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges. Our business is closely tied to the national environment. Agricultural crops and water are our key ingredients. We require raw materials for our packaging, and we need energy to brew, transport and cool our beers. Our business is also closely connected with local communities and people across our global footprint. All of these have the potential to be impacted by climate change, and we work to drive climate mitigation and adaptation across our value chain. We continue to make great progress towards our 2025 climate action goal and our ambition to reach Net Zero by 2040. In 2022, we reduced our absolute emissions in our operations by over 39% versus our 2017 baseline, achieving our science-based target to reduce Scopes 1 and 2 emissions by 35% by 2025. We also reduced our emissions intensity across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 20.7% versus our 2017 baseline. We ended 2022 with 97.1% of our global electricity volume contracted with renewables. And we're excited to share that we've seen an increase of over 26 percentage points versus 2021 in the volume that is now operational. When it comes to our climate goals and ambitions, we know that Scope 3 increasingly presents the greatest opportunity for emissions reduction, representing more than 86% of our emissions in 2022. We're continuing to collaborate across our value chain to help drive progress. Upstream, we're engaging supply chain partners through our supplier collaboration platform, Eclipse, which aims to share best practices, build capabilities and drive collaborative efforts. In 2022, we convened the Eclipse Climate Collective in Munich, where we brought together over 200 people representing over 50 strategic global suppliers and 50% of our Scope 3 emissions. We have many success stories as we're expanding and ramping up our collaboration efforts with our key suppliers. We have suppliers that have improved their emissions mapping, applied for a science-based target, launched their Net Zero journey and started reporting to the CDP. We've also collaborated with suppliers to pilot low-carbon beverage cans in the U.S. and Canada. Going the other end of our value chain, we're also working with retailers to share lessons learned in renewables and provide them with access to renewable electricity. For example, last year, we partnered with local low emissions energy providers in Brazil to help convert more than 4,000 bars and restaurants to renewable electricity. Now let's talk about water. In water stewardship, we're focusing on driving measurable improvement to address the growing water challenges across our communities and supply chain. Within our operations, we aim to drive water use efficiency with an ambition to reach 2.5 hectoliter per hectoliter in our breweries globally by 2025. In 2022, we achieved a water use efficiency ratio of 2.64 hectoliter per hectoliter, an improvement of over 14% since 2017. Going a step further, we set the mission to achieve 2.0 hectoliter per hectoliter in our brewery located in high stress sites that were identified as part of our 2025 water goal. And we achieved a water use efficiency ratio of 2.4 hectoliter per hectoliter in these sites in 2022, an improvement of over 16% compared to our 2017 baseline. In the high shift water shift included in the scope of our 2025 goal, we've assessed local water challenges and have started implementing tailored solutions in all 36 sites. And in 6 of these sites, we've already started seeing measurable improvement. So what does that look like? To explain a bit more of what we mean by measurable improvement, let me give you a brief overview of our approach. Water security is complex and water risk is local. There is no single solution that we can apply globally. So to help us identify the challenges and appropriate solutions for each high-stress watershed, we developed a 7-step watershed management process that includes stakeholder engagement, governance and funding and ultimately impact measurement. One example of the water share where we began seeing measurable improvement is in the Jaguariuna River Basin in Brazil. Lower rainfall has impacted water availability in the basin, which has been further exacerbated by native vegetation loss due to population and agriculture pressures. Through the Bacias Jaguariuna Water fund, we have partnered with public institutions, technical agencies and other local partners to help assess and address these challenges. The fund has established a payment for environmental services program that helps incentivize conservation practices in soil and forest management and has also implemented a watershed conservation and restoration project with the aim to increase water availability and manage seasonal flows. Since 2015, we've seen improvements in forest conservation, ecological restoration and improved agricultural practices that have resulted in average annual volumetric benefits of nearly 400 million liters of water per year. I visited the watershed about 2 months ago, and it was great to visibly see the return of the natural vegetation and hear anecdotal comments from the farmers in the local community about the benefits of these collective efforts. Let's turn to agricultural development. Our business depends on high-quality agricultural crops from driving communities and healthy ecosystems to brew our beers. And we work to improve economic practices to help reduce emissions, protect watersheds and improve biodiversity. Beyond the environmental aspect, we know the impacts of climate change in the agriculture sector are closely linked with the socioeconomic challenges farmers face across the globe. In 2022, we worked with nearly 24,000 direct farmers to source our 6 priority crops: barley, hops, cassava, maize, rice and sorghum. Taking a farmer-centric approach, we use our direct connection with farmers through our economy teams to reach our smart agriculture goal. In 2022, 89% of these direct farmers were skilled with access to approved crop varieties and technical support. 72% were connected, receiving digital insights and communications on market, weather or economic advice. 72% were financially empowered with access to appropriate financial tools and training. To help build Brazilian agricultural supply chains, our initiatives not only address environmental aspects of farming, but also the socioeconomic elements that are closely linked. We work with farmers around the world in an effort to improve their productivity through research, crop management tools and agronomic advice, which help improve their resilience, output and profitability and contribute to more sustainable food systems more broadly. Research and crop varieties and production practices plays a big role in this. Our Global Barley Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado uses cutting-edge breeding techniques to develop barley varieties, all non-GMO that have better resistance to the impacts of climate change. We also leverage a global network of 7 model farms to trial and evaluate the viability of regenerative practices and then use this knowledge to help guide practice change among farmers in the region as well as in the broader industry. In circular packaging, we continue to focus on innovative packaging solutions and use our scale to drive progress towards a more circular approach that is better for the environment and also better for our business in terms of cost and long-term packaging supply security. In 2022, 77% of our products were either in returnables or in packaging made from majority recycled content. 40.3% of our volume was in returnable packaging, which is nearly a 9% increase compared to the previous year. We've also increased recycled content across our packaging materials compared to the previous year. An increase in on-premise volume, which is one of our main collection points for returnables, close collaboration with our suppliers and initiatives to improve the availability of recycled content have helped drive these results. We know that to increase the amount of recycled content in our packaging, we might also work to help increase the amount of recycled content available in the market. Strengthening local recycling ecosystems can play a big role in bringing one-way packaging back into the recycling supply chain. A good example of this is in the U.S., where in 2022, we launched the National Recycling League in partnership with Major League Baseball and the National Football League to reduce beer packaging waste from professional sporting events and encourage recycling behaviors among consumers in a stadium, at home or at their neighborhood bar. Moving on to our next priority. As the global business deeply rooted in communities, we are committed to promoting the highest standards of ethical behavior and transparency in our operations and across our value chain. This guides everything we do as an organization and is our foundation for creating a future with more cheers. Our code of business conduct, along with our global policies, provide ethical principles that address topics like anti-bribery and corruption, digital ethics, human rights and antidiscrimination. And we have in place governance bodies and programs to help manage these topics. We conduct risk-based training plans on an annual basis that cover key ethics and compliance areas. And in 2022, we launched online training focused on conflicts of interest, digital ethics principles and harassment. We see ethical behavior as foundational to building a company to last and is a key driver for our commercial success, and we continue to amplify the importance of ethical practices and empower our colleagues through our global compliance channel, targeted trainings, robust governance structures and cutting-edge technological tools like our award-winning compliance data analytics platform, BrewRIGHT to manage compliance risks. Respecting human rights is fundamental to creating healthy, thriving communities, and we seek to foster business practices that support and respect human rights and align with the UN Global Compact principles. And we will continue to seek out opportunities to work with our colleagues and value chain partners to promote and maintain the highest standards of ethical behavior through our tools, processes, resources and capabilities. Beer is a formidable engine of economic growth, and we work to help strengthen small businesses in our value chain through our programs with smallholder farmers, suppliers, retailers and recycling collectors. Through meaningful engagement with these entrepreneurs, we can catalyze resources and opportunities to develop localized solutions that benefit entrepreneurs and their families and help grow local economies. In 2022, we worked with more than 18,500 smallholder farmers through our direct sourcing programs, providing them with access to crop inputs, agronomic guidance and market information and financial tools to help improve their productivity. One example of how we are doing this is in Tanzania, where we partnered with blockchain provider, BanQu and Vodacom to support Sorghum farmers by increasing their access to mobile financial services. Vodacom's mobile money service, M-Pesa is integrated on BanQu's blockchain-based purchasing platform to enable secure direct and transparent payments to farmers for their sorghum crop. We support entrepreneurship through digital inclusion by enabling access to the tools and technologies that provide entrepreneurs with greater access to information, markets, customers and other data points needed to drive their business. And through financial inclusion by helping create access for entrepreneurs to support and grow their businesses through increased financial literacy and greater opportunities to adopt more resilient financial practices. Our digital B2B platform, BEES, helps to empower retailers to better manage their business and be more profitable by bringing the power of digital to retailers to face challenges in accessing financial services, business skills development and the inputs needed to maintain and upgrade stores. We also provide digital insights and analytics through the platform with tools like Mi Negocio, that provides retailers with modules like business performance visibility, market trends and other educational content. In 2022, 1.6 million active BEES retailers across 10 countries had access to Mi Negocio with approximately 60% of these retailers using the feature each month to leverage insights. We know that our greatest strength is our people, and we support the opportunity for every individual to excel. We work to continue fostering an inclusive workplace so that everyone can succeed in our business. In 2022, we scored 88% for our diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI Index in our annual engagement survey, which was 1 percentage point increase from 2021. We had 132 nationalities represented in our overall workforce. The percentage of women in our salaried workforce increased to 35%, up 5 percentage points from 2017. And last but not least, we work with an independent party to conduct a pay equity review in 2022, and we have no statistically significant difference in base pay, be it women and men. In 2022, we appointed our first Global Vice President of DEI, which was previously a director level role. This role now reports directly into our Chief People Officer and works cross-functionally to further our DEI efforts across the business. As part of our DEI strategy, we run targeted programs to truly embed DEI throughout our organization, such as the ones aimed at empowering women with the skills and resources they need to reach their full potential. And representation of women in the top 5 leadership levels of our business increased by 9 percentage points from 2017 to 2022. This is supported by many initiatives to recruit, retain and develop female talent, including in our global management training program that helps us recruit our next generation of leaders. Last year, our incoming GMT class was 56% women. We are honored to be included in the 2023 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index, which is an index that tracks the performance of public companies that have demonstrated their commitment to disclosing their efforts to support gender equality. This recognition is a testament to our commitment to DEIs that is reflected in our initiatives, policies and actions. The year is a drink of moderation. And as the world's leading brewer, we want every experience with beer to be a positive one. Through our Smart Drinking initiatives, we aim to empower consumers to make smart choices while enjoying our products. As of 2022, we've invested more than USD 700 million in social norms marketing since 2016 to infer consumption patterns. We are supporting 67 programs across 25 countries using evidence-based techniques that we tested in our city pilots, including growth pace initiatives and responsible beverage service training. We proactively updated our label designs on 100% of primary product packaging in 26 countries where mandatory labeling is not required, sharing clear, actionable information on reducing harmful alcohol consumption. While we believe we will not reach our goal of 20% no or low alcohol beer volumes by 2025, as of last year, we were just north of 6%. We are encouraged by the evolution of the nonalcoholic beer segment. In 2022, we were well positioned to respond to the consumer trends with 30 no-alcohol beer brands spanning 42 countries around the world. With our iconic brand portfolio, we have an opportunity to influence consumption patterns by promoting social norms that produce positive outcomes. Social norms marketing is a combination of evidence-based techniques proven to promote safer behaviors by connecting social norms with the communications of brands people know and trust. Across our markets, through brand-led campaigns, we are promoting moderation through no-alcohol beer partnering with food brands to encourage eating before or while drinking and partnering with the automotive industry to encourage having designated drivers. Several of these have been award-winning campaigns in recent years. As we continue to make progress towards our goals and ambitions across these 8 strategic priorities, we look for breakthrough technologies and innovative solutions to effectively advance each one. I always like to say that sustainability is the ultimate brief for design. If we design our processes, our products and our operating model better, they will surely be more sustainable. We are at the forefront of sustainable innovation through our Global Innovation and Technology Center, or GITEC, as we call it, in Leuven, Belgium, and through our 100+ Accelerator program, enabling us to capture opportunities for efficiencies and new value creation across our priorities. GITEC has played a critical role in our sustainability journey from developing early-stage technologies to implementing them at scale across our operations, including solutions that help improve energy efficiency in our breweries or lightweight our packaging to reduce the footprint from our material. We created the 100+ Accelerator program in 2018 to help source, validate and scale sustainable technology, giving participating start-ups an opportunity to pilot their innovative solution in our global value chain and scale faster. Since it began, the Accelerator has worked with 116 start-ups from 33 countries and is now collaborating with partners to further catalyze innovation. One example I can highlight from Cohort 3 is Sun Man, a start-up in China that offers glass free, flexible and lightweight solar panels that can be directly bonded to any surface, which is not only bringing clean electricity but also cost savings to our Wuhan brewery. In 2022, the 100+ Accelerator launched its latest cohort, cohort #4 with 46 startups tackling challenges in circular economy, smart agriculture, water stewardship, climate action, inclusive growth and biodiversity. We look forward to sharing the results of these latest pilots at our demo day later this year. And while we know there are opportunities to continue strengthening our ESG approach, we are proud to have our efforts recognized by leading rating, ranking and award providers to further substantiate that we are on the right path, including being recognized by CDP with an A score for our leadership in corporate transparency and performance in both climate change and water security. And being awarded to 2022 Gold Medal for International Corporate Achievement in Sustainable Development by the World Environment Center. In summary, a future with more cheers is one, which share prosperity for our communities for the planet and for our company. We are proud to lead the way to that future. Fernando and I are excited to share with you today our sustainability progress and aspirations, and I encourage you to check out our 2022 ESG report on our website for more information. As always, we welcome your feedback. Thank you again for joining us today. We will now open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will be coming from the line of Edward Mundy with Jefferies.

Three questions from me, please. First question is really around some repleting comments, Fernando, around sustainability being at odds with growth and profitability. And I really wanted to drill into ESG and the financial payback and really how you're aligning the ESG goals with financial goals. So question is should ESG be considered as a cost of doing business or can it be something that could be value accretive from a financial perspective? That's the first question. Second question is about beer being an engine of economic growth. Could you provide some examples of how this is helping you to work with governments to ensure fair taxation? That is the second question. And the third question is around returnable glass bottles, which traditionally is viewed as something in emerging markets to drive affordability. Do you think there's opportunity to drive increased bottle reusage in more established markets to help push brand building or premiumization or drive brand purpose?

Hello, Ed. Thanks for your 3 questions. So I'll start to tackle one by one, and then Ezgi will help me here as well. On the first one, we are in a sector where we source our natural goods; barley, hops, water, yeast. And then with that, we source locally. With that, we actually have local breweries spread around the world. And with that, we use energy of cost, and then you make beer out of that and then you distribute to the point of sales that are most locally. So the more efficient we are in terms of the more efficient the harvest is, the better they yield from the crops, the lower the energy that we consume, actually, you are a better business. And if you think that brewery is more than 90% water, no water, no beer. So ensuring that we have not only short-term but long-term sources of water, not only for us but the communities where we are placed, ensure that we have a viable business in the future. So when you add all of that, for us to be more sustainable is it's almost like the same as being more efficient and it's always the same as being more profitable. In that way, I'm not sure if all sectors could claim the same. But for us, being more sustainable goes hand-in-hand with the financial performance of the business. So the most sustained we are, the better off we are. So that's your first question. On the second question, you were asking about the impact that we have on the societies. So in sync with my first comment, beer is produced locally, distributed locally and consumed locally. So we definitely have a huge impact at the local level, not necessarily you produce in one country, ship to the other and then you have not necessarily impacted where you are operating. Just to put some numbers out of that, last year, Oxford Economics, they released the first study -- the first ever study on the global -- the impact of beer for the global economy. We can say that $1 out of every $131 of GDP comes from the beer sector. We can also say that 1 in 110 jobs in the global economy also comes from the beer sector. And actually, the ratio is 29 jobs in this whole chain for each 1 job in the brewery. And if you go to emerging markets, this ratio is even stronger. We have even more of a meaningful impact. The total tax revenues that the beer industry is generating across the whole value chain annually amounts to $260 billion. We, as the largest player, we are responsible for all of these GDP contributions, 27% of the global GDP contributions. This is both us and our supply chain and 21% of all these jobs. And the interesting thing about beer is that when you look at the taxes we paid, it's very decentralized. Look at our business. We generated $20.3 billion in taxes. But 2/3 of that is pretty much excise taxes. And they are directly linked to beer sales and paid locally for each one of the local communities we operate. All in all, I quoted a lot of numbers, but just to show the sheer magnitude of the impact of beer in the local economies and also the magnitude of the taxes that we contribute to the local economies making sure that not only are delivering growth, growth to the economies, but also helping the governments. And the third one, I'm going to let Ezgi reply to you.

Thank you, Fernando, and thank you for the question. So your question around returnables and what are good learnings across markets. So everywhere around the world, we look for ways to promote circularity and to champion circular economy. And maybe I can give you 2 examples how we're doing this in markets across Latin America where we're bringing sustainable convenience solutions to promote recycling, recovery and reuse of our packaging. In 2021, we launched a program called Rebounce in Mexico, so glass bottle recovery program that really works to regenerate -- or generate recovery chains and rescue bottles that are typically destined for single use that may otherwise be lost in the market, but we look for ways to recover these bottles. So launched in 2021, in 2022, we work with 90 collectors to recruit more than 350 million glass bottles, nearly tripling the number of rescue bottles compared to the year before. So we're really excited about this progress we're making, and we take a systems approach to enable this because this is, of course, not easy. So we look for ways to set up warehouses where recovered bottles are sorted and washed. This, of course, creates local jobs. And again, the idea is how do we make sure that, that packaging does not end up in a landfill, and we can recover it and reuse it. I think another example and this could be one for us to take the learnings and see how we can bring this to other markets as well as their delivery in Brazil, which is one of our direct-to-consumer digital products, delivering in every state in Brazil, processing 6 million orders each month. So these are 2022 figures that are also in our ESG report if you're looking for more details. So the way it works is orders are placed via the website or the mobile app. They're fulfilled by local retailers or small distribution hubs. And then they get delivered by a network of couriers direct to consumers' homes. And what their delivery has been able to do now present in more than 380 cities across Brazil, serving about 4 million consumers per month is now they're enabling consumers to return their bottles. So with every order placed, consumers can hand in back their empty bottles to the courier, who takes the bottle back to the retailer or to the distribution hub. And then the bottles get sorted, returned, cleaned for reuse. And we're encouraged to see that about 40% of sales come from returnable bottles. So it's just another example of how we're innovating to solve for convenience and to solve for consumer pain points. But the last piece I would want to highlight is how we continue to innovate, giving consumers choice. I think we're uniquely positioned to do that with a portfolio of iconic brands and a consumer-first mindset. So we'll continue to incorporate sustainable practices into all aspects of our brands, including the raw material sourcing, the packaging innovation, the design as well as the advertising, distribution and sales. So we really take that full value chain approach to continue to find commercial success with sustainable products and innovation.

Our next question is coming from the line of Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge.

A significant component of ABI's business has always been about creating competitive advantages and then retaining those advantages to produce high margins. And that's just why they accepted how business is conducted. Sustainability is used differently. So how does the company think about creating and retaining competitive advantages in sustainability versus sharing those? And then do you differentiate between someone that might be further afield from your business versus competitors?

Thanks, Brett. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that we make our business better and the community where we operate better. It goes hand in hand to some extent. And of course, when you are able to make your business in the community better, that's what we call self prosperity and that should be the goal. Because if you take one step back, since we source from local communities, but we also sell at local communities. If the local communities are thriving, if they are doing well, we are also doing well. That's why it's almost like a virtual cycle that we need to make sure. So to summarize your question, it makes our business better, and it makes the local community better as well. It goes hand-in-hand. And we don't have any specific metric on what portion is your share one way or another. We have some metrics to make sure that the local communities are doing better and we track them on an ongoing basis. Ezgi can comment on that.

Yes. Thanks, Brett. So what I would add is we believe in the power of innovation and collaboration, right? If we're going to tackle these broader societal environmental challenges and if we're going to build business for the next 100-plus years, we know that it takes innovation and collaboration. And collaboration is how you get to that right enabling environment with the right policy, the innovative financing solutions, the collaboration against the collective action so that you can surface these solutions and implement them at scale. So that's what we look for. Again, beer is inclusive, natural and local. And for us, in everything we do, we look for ways to drive that local meaningful impact. Of course, as a global company with huge connections across our value chain -- I would say, a global local company with huge connections across our value chain, we work to identify, test and scale sustainable solutions that can help build that inclusive, sustainable future that we all want. And we do that in a number of ways, in how we engage with our supply chain partners, for example, through our Eclipse platform, which we covered during the presentation, in how we share those learnings. As we're driving climate action, we look for ways to share those learnings with our supply chain partners because we know that if our -- some of our biggest raw materials, packaging suppliers, can also decarbonize, that reduces our emissions. It's a huge way for us to, again, find ways to invest in climate mitigation. But if you think of climate, [indiscernible], for example, how we work with our farmers to build that climate resilience to bring them the right seed varieties, to bring them the right economic practices. We look for ways to share the learnings because, again, if we didn't share the learnings from Argentina to Mexico to South Africa, then we wouldn't be able to progress as fast as we could. Another example is the 100+ Accelerator program, which we talked about and how we work with corporate partners to identify pilot and scale, again, the breakthrough solutions because in some cases, you can take a solution and find different use cases for it or tested in different geographies. We think that all of these could really generate learnings that can again catalyze that innovation. And the last one I would say is how we engage with our industry partners through organizations like our memberships like the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the World Economic Forum, the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable, we look for ways to advance the conversation to bring in, again, the evidence-based, the science-based approach to everything we do and how we think about sustainability.

We'll move on to our next question, which is coming from the line of Trevor Stirling with Bernstein.

Three questions from my side as well, a slightly more detailed level. Ezgi, on water, I think you highlighted the average use at the moment. I think last time around, you just mentioned your best practice area was in China. So I wonder if you could say is the best practice still coming out of China? And what is your water consumption in that particular brewery. Second question concerning farming, to highlight of the 24,000 direct farmers. I wonder what percentage of your grain are you actually able to source directly. And then for the rest of the, let me call it, bulk supply from the [indiscernible] of this world, how do you engage with them in order to reduce carbon footprint to adopt regenerative agriculture, et cetera? And the final question, you mentioned the evidence-based techniques to reduce alcohol consumption, alcohol harm. If you could just give a little bit of color about what techniques those are that you found through those pilots that help reduce the harmful impact of alcohol?

Thank you. Thanks, Trevor, for all the questions. So let me maybe start with the first one. So on water, yes, I think last time we discussed, we shared with you how some of the best practices come out of our operations across China. We don't really give specific facilities and efficiency levels. But what we always like to highlight is how we work to improve efficiency and best practices and bring excellence everywhere around the world. And in fact, our supply team, which is our operations team works in such a way that we raise the bar every year because we look at the top 10% best-performing breweries in everything we do, and we try to create that as a benchmark for the rest of the operations to kind of aspire to become. So every year, the bar keeps getting higher and higher, which really is great. And I would tell you, once you walk through the brewery doors and it could be any brewery door, you're greeted by these huge sign boards that keep track of these key KPIs is the water efficiency, the energy efficiency, the safety metrics, et cetera. So again, it's very much top of mind. It's -- there's a huge management system that sits behind it. It's our Voyager plant optimization system that really tracks what we call these good operating practices. It's over 400 of them. Many of them very directly linked to sustainability. But everything we do, we really try to bring the best practices from one place to another and continue to push our teams to deliver greater efficiencies and cost savings for us. Second question on farming, what percent of our grain comes directly from our direct sourcing regions or the growers that we work there. So it's about 50% of our barley comes from these farming communities, which is huge. Again, if you think about a company our size with our scale and reach around the world for us to be sourcing about 50% directly from these farming communities where we send out agronomists out to the field and visit the farmers and discuss with them their challenges, educate them on sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices. This is a huge opportunity for us. And we bring a lot of those learnings from those markets and those direct engagements to how we work with our indirect suppliers as well. So your question on how you've been engaged with the indirect suppliers, I would say Eclipse is a big one and again, how we drive climate action. So we do convene the raw material suppliers as well to not only co-innovate and copilot new technologies, but also to find ways to invest in regenerative agriculture sources -- sorry, regenerative agriculture practices around the world. So that's definitely one way that we do that. And I would say for the bigger suppliers, there's always opportunities for us to also find ways on piloting. We are doing some regenerative agricultural pilots in France, for example. So that's not one of our direct sourcing regions, but we want to take the learnings from there and find ways of how you shift the farmer behavior and how you get these generational farming practices to be -- to adapt to climate change. So yes, definitely big opportunities there. The third question on reducing harmful use of alcohol and what changes or what's kind of what we're looking to achieve with evidence-based outcomes. I would say our city pilot programs are some of the biggest initiatives where we take the learnings and we invest in interventions that can ultimately reduce harmful consumptions of alcohol. These include road safety programs, responsible beverage service trainings and screenings and brief intervention programs that we have. And what we do there is really we work very closely with public health experts, the local authorities, the AB InBev Foundation to support over 60 programs across 25 countries, again, using these evidence-based techniques that came out of the city pilots and the learnings there. So in everything we do, we really look for science. We look for ways to see how the World Health Organization is providing guidance out there as well. And the data from the World Health Organization shows that the harmful consumption of alcohol has decreased globally over the last decade. So we continue to find ways to find the right partners within the industry, within the local communities because we want every experience with beer to be a positive one.

Our next question is coming from the line of Leo Malhado with Evercore ISI.

I wanted to ask more about the emissions ambition for 2040. So in 2017, I see that you've reduced your absolute greenhouse gas emissions across Scopes 1 and 2 by 39% and the intensity across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by around 21%. Can you please update us on your progress towards achieving the Net Zero goal by 2040 because obviously, the largest opportunities, like you said earlier, are coming from Scope 3.

Yes. Thank you. Thanks for the question. So yes, so we're really proud. So maybe let me first address the 2025 goal before I go into the 2040. We're really proud of the progress that we're making so far. I think this is what makes ABI so special and how we know the ins and outs of our business and what we've been able to achieve since 2017, as you mentioned, about 40% decrease in absolute emissions in Scopes 1 and 2. So these are emissions inside our four walls, right? It just shows you how our teams really know our processes, our systems, they identify where the best practices or the best opportunities are for us to decarbonize and we invest in deep decarbonization. That's our primary strategy. And this one point -- this absolute emissions reduction of 35% against the baseline of 2017 by 2025 is actually in line with the 1.5-degree trajectory. So for us to be getting to 39% already by the end of 2022. So way before 2025, that's fantastic. It shows you how we are on a much faster trajectory but now the challenge is how do we continue to maintain it at that level and continue to invest in these decarbonization initiatives, take the learnings and apply them elsewhere. And we have a number of ways we do that. We have different Lighthouse initiatives where the teams find new ways for us to decarbonize and we test and pilot these around the world. And then the Scopes 1, 2 and 3 intensity emissions or emissions intensity reduction, as you mentioned, is at 20.7% by the end of 2022. The public commitment there is 25%. So we are on track, again, to get to that 25% emissions intensity reduction by 2025. And alongside this, we really wanted to come out. I mean, one thing to highlight here is we were one of the first 100 companies to have set a science-based target -- approved by science-based targets initiative back in 2018. So when we came out with these 2025 sustainability goals. But if you look at it, we were actually one of the latter companies to have come out with a Net Zero ambition. And the reason for that is really wanted to do our homework. We really wanted to map out decarbonization pathways and understand how we could actually ultimately get to a Net Zero future across our Scopes 1, 2 and 3. So for us, we put together a carbon committee across functional group that includes our operations, logistics, procurement teams, our finance teams to really map out what this could look like. We had meaningful conversations with our Board and ultimately announced in December 2021 a Net Zero ambition by 2040. And we really believe that we've mapped out the -- what I would say, the trajectories of where we expect the decarbonization to come from. But we've also identified opportunities for us to go and pursue innovation. We also looked for the policy environment where we see policy driving technology or policy driving innovation. So that's definitely one that as we look -- that we look to. I think in terms of next steps, our decarbonization efforts in the 2025 goals are going to be a stepping stone for us to get to the 2040 Net Zero ambition. We are now looking forward to submitting our Net Zero ambition to the science-based targets initiative. You may know already about the forest land and agriculture guidance. So the FLAG guidance came out of SBTi last year. This was an important guidance that we were waiting for as the food and beverage industry. So it's important for us to take that guidance in our science-based target setting for a Net Zero target. So now with the FLAG guidance out, we will be submitting the Net Zero ambition to the science-based targets initiative. Again, for us, to make sure that we are setting that client-based Net Zero vision. And huge opportunities there for us to take the learnings within the industry, to also find ways again through the Eclipse platform, to go and identify opportunities. Right now, as you mentioned, about 87% of our emissions sit in Scope 3. And the more we decarbonize and we do that a lot faster inside our four walls, the bigger that percentage is going to become, right? So next year, that percentage is likely going to be bigger and bigger because we're going to continue to decarbonize insight. So as a percentage of our emissions, Scope 3 will only get bigger until we find ways to decarbonize it at a faster pace. So again, big opportunities there for us to engage with our supply chain partners and to invest in the innovations where there are potential solutions.

We'll move on to our next question, which will be our final question coming from the line of Richard Withagen with Kepler.

I've got 2 questions. First of all, going back to the recycled content in packaging. So you have some of your own production of packaging in some countries. So what are you doing to help advance circular packaging in your own businesses, in your own operations? And then the second question is on the rollout and increase of low or no products. So as you said, ABI won't reach the 2025 target. So what are some of the next facts the company will take to advance in this area? I think is obviously it's a health angle to it, but it's also a commercial angle, I guess?

Thank you. Thank you for the question, Richard. So let me -- maybe let me start with the first question on how we advance circular packaging, especially on the recycled content and how we think of it as our vertical operations. Definitely, this is one, much like what you see with our direct farming regions or direct sourcing regions and our engagement with direct growers versus the indirect. We look for, again, those learnings and insights inside our operations, inside our verticals on how we can introduce the technical feasibilities, how we can introduce more color or more scrap into our glass bottles or into our cans. So definitely, there's a lot of learnings that take place within that. And we run these verticals much like we run our brewery operations. So again, we always aspire to set this standard, take the learnings, apply them, but we also take those learnings in how we engage with our -- what I would call third-party suppliers. And again, the feasibility, viability of introducing more recycled content into glass bottles and cans and PET where we have them. So definitely, this is part of the Scope, and we look for ways to bring in the learnings across and always champion circularity. In terms of the NABLAB question, so the non-alc, low-alc offerings and how we're looking at this. For us, I think it's important to maybe take a step back and remember why we set the NABLAB goal in the first place. We believe in moderation. We want to reduce the harmful consumption of alcohol globally. And for many years, we've got a long-standing legacy and responsibility in the responsible drinking messages that we deliver to our consumers and the responsible sales and marketing codes and standards that we set for our partners and for bartenders or retailers that sell our products. And we've been advocating and promoting smart drinking around the world for years. Our NABLAB goal was established with a threshold for low alcohol year, 3.5% alcohol by volume. And we've been striving towards that goal over the last years. However, as you mentioned, we recognize that 20% of our volume will not fall within that threshold by 2025. So we are not on track. In 2022, the WHO Global Alcohol Action Plan issued call for increased non-alc and lower alcohol alternatives around the world, and we continue to do our part. Again, our global volumes were at -- 6% of our global volumes were below 3.5, and we're encouraged by the evolution of the non-alc segment. It's one of the fastest growing within the beer category. We're excited to take the learnings from markets where the consumer demand is for it so that we can continue to innovate around the world. And our non-alc portfolio is well positioned to respond to this trend with 30 brands spanning across 42 countries. This is huge, how you really work with local brands to introduce a non-alc offering for the consumers. And for us to put that out as an innovative responsible solution, I think is definitely something that is part of our strategy and how we lead and grow the category. Again, beer is inclusive, natural and local and that inclusivity extends our products in not only being an affordable, accessible category, but also a category that offers -- that promotes responsibility and moderation at a category that offers the non-alc and low-alc solutions. So we really believe that non-alc products play a very important goal in bringing more consumers to more occasions and more consumers into the category as well. So really happy to see the industry efforts promoting NABLAB. I think these also meaningfully impact consumer behavior with consumer interest for non-alc products growing around the world. And our commitment to smart drinking really goes beyond the non-alc and low-alc offerings. We continue to invest in initiatives, some of them we talked about earlier, but we continue to invest in the evidence-based best practices. The learnings from the city pilots. We continue to invest in social norms marketing. It's a huge opportunity for us to really leverage our core competencies and how we engage through our brands with our consumers and look for ways to shift and improve social norms and behavior. And then, of course, last but not least, the guidance labeling, investing and labeling initiatives where the mandatory government labeling requirements may not be there. And lastly, beer is low alcohol by definition, and then it's the drink of choice for the moderate consumer compared to other alcohol categories. So we really believe that we're leading the way. We're using our core strengths of our business and investing behind not only the innovative products to offer and to address the evolving needs of our consumers but also investing behind evidence-based initiatives to promote what we call smart drinking. Thank you again for the question. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was our final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. Ezgi, would you like to make any additional concluding remarks before we end today's event?

No, thank you. Thanks, everyone, for dialing in today.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's sustainability call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.