Canada's Greenest Employers (2025) - Flipbook - Page 50
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CANADA'S GREENEST EMPLOYERS (2025)
For Labatt, sustainability is a collaborative effort
M
att Costa, senior
director,
sustainability and
procurement, at
Labatt Breweries
of Canada, loves the scale of his
company’s green ambitions. “We
made our pledge earlier and with
a shorter timeline than most other
consumer packaged goods
makers,” he says, “at a time when
we really didn’t have a roadmap
on how to achieve them, knowing
that we had the right values,
resources and people to figure it
out.”
In 2024, Costa took on a role
managing the sourcing of
aluminum cans in all of the
countries in the Americas. “It was
a really interesting experience,
moving from the raw materials
— hops, water, barley — to the
packaging, which is just as
important from a sustainability
perspective.”
All in all, an apt background for
Costa’s new role with Labatt, a
company committed to short
supply chains and local brands, as
well as a green future.
“Sustainability is the right thing
to do and so is doing it in the right
way. My responsibility at Labatt is
to source the best materials with
the smallest environmental
footprints at the best terms — call
it economic sustainability — in a
balance that extends across the
entire value chain,” Costa says.
“It’s not just about having the
lowest carbon footprint possible
in our operations, but working
with and enabling our partners in
the supply chain so that we all
become more sustainable,” says
the director. “We’re aiming for an
optimal equilibrium where you
have profitability, sustainability
and partnership, and the whole
system is better.”
In Gatineau, Que., François
Bernard-Hébert echoes Costa’s
statements. As Labatt’s national
fleet and capex manager — the
person in charge of all of the
company’s trucks — BernardHébert oversaw the 2024
introduction of 10 half-million-dollar EV trucks into the
Québec distribution network. “It’s
a massive investment and it has to
keep extending all along the line,”
he says.
The purchase is the largest
single order of VNR Electric
trucks for Volvo Trucks in Canada,
representing nearly 25 per cent of
their deliveries, and was in
addition to a purchase of Labatt’s
It’s not just about having
the lowest carbon footprint
possible in our operations,
but working with and
enabling our partners in the
value chain so that we all
become more sustainable.
— Matt Costa
Senior Director, Sustainability and
Procurement
By values and experience, Costa
is one of those right people. After
undergraduate studies in his
native Brazil and an MBA from
Cornell University in the United
States, he went to work in
Switzerland for AB InBev, Labatt’s
parent company. “In 2020, I
became the director of barley and
malt procurement for North
America and spent a lot of time in
farmers’ fields, gaining insights
about what it takes to grow great
barley, which becomes great malt,
which becomes great beer,” he
says.
A truck driver for Labatt Breweries of Canada operates one of the company’s first electric trucks in Québec.
