Budweiser Budvar registration failures show ESG implications of UK non-compliance | Premium

Most businesses place more importance on their products than their packaging, but a recent fine imposed in the UK on Czech brewery Budweiser Budvar shows that packaging is playing an increasingly important role in sustainability regulations.

Last month, the UK Environment Agency found that the brewery had failed to register with the government as a producer of packaging waste under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007 for 18 years. The company agreed to pay £414,000 ($532,000) to charity to reflect the savings it made by not complying from the start, as well as a 30 percent fine and agency costs.

“It is important that companies take responsibility for the packaging they put on the UK market,” Jake Richardson, a spokesman for the agency, said in a press release on 15 August. Richardson said Budweiser Budvar had corrected its mistake of paying its “fair share” of packaging recycling.