Turn barley straw into new circular value

Submitted through the COP31 Sustainable Transformation Awards · SKD Türkiye (WBCSD Global Network Partner)

Anadolu Efes Biracılık ve Malt Sanayii A.Ş. brews beer and produces malt in Türkiye's manufacturing sector and employs more than 1,000 people.

Barley is the company's principal agricultural input, and the straw that remains after harvest has conventionally been treated as field waste. Moving the wider economy from a take-make-dispose model to a circular one is a precondition for resource security: according to The Circularity Gap Report 2026, the linear structure of the economy destroys approximately EUR 25.4 trillion of value every year. As materials become critical, returning agricultural by-products to the value chain represents a significant opportunity.

The company launched the initiative in 2025 in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Türkiye. It was started as a pilot in Adıyaman, in the region affected by the earthquakes, working with two women's enterprise cooperatives and a social design centre, MILKist, and has since grown into a scalable model supported by national and international collaborations.

Adıyaman was selected not only because of its connection to barley production, but also because of the need to strengthen local livelihoods following the 2023 earthquakes. Women’s cooperatives in the region have significant production knowledge and entrepreneurial potential but continue to face challenges related to access to skills, markets, equipment and sustainable income opportunities. The initiative therefore combines circular economy principles with women’s economic empowerment and locally led recovery.

The initiative is owned at board and senior management level within the company's 2035 Vision, which positions sustainability as a transformative strategy rather than as a support function. The initiative is aligned with the company’s 2035 Vision, which positions sustainability as a transformative strategy. 2026 is used as the base year for social and environmental impact measurement, with results monitored annually and reported in line with the company’s integrated reporting framework.

Location of the initiative: Adıyaman province in the earthquake-affected region of Türkiye, with an exhibition in New York, United States

The initiative reclassifies barley straw from agricultural waste to a secondary raw material, and builds a production chain around that reclassification.

Women’s cooperatives are positioned as local production partners and contributors to the development of the material, rather than solely as beneficiaries. Working with designers, artists and technical experts, cooperative members contribute their local knowledge and production experience while developing new skills in handmade paper production, product development, standardisation and quality control.

A total of 16 original artworks have been produced across different disciplines, including printing, sculpture and digital art, and brought into the production cycle. In all, 13 creative professionals, among them three prominent Turkish designers, worked with the cooperatives throughout the research, development and product development process.

The model brings together actors that do not usually work within the same value chain: the company’s agricultural supply network, women’s cooperatives in an earthquake-affected region, professional designers and artists, and an international design school. This multi-stakeholder structure combines circular economy principles with women’s economic empowerment and locally led recovery.

The route to market is being built in parallel. An online auction of the works is planned, with the proceeds directed to the cooperatives, and decoration products made from the material are planned for retail shelves. One international exhibition has been held at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and an open call there allowed international design students to work with the material and combine it with their own design elements, which also lays the ground for work on barley straw as a material for the textile ecosystem.

Capability development combines in-person training in Adıyaman with continued remote support and open-access technical videos, so that production knowledge moves in both directions between Adıyaman and the design partners.

Figure 1: From barley straw to handmade paper and finished products, with women's cooperatives in Adıyaman at the centre of the material chain

Figure 2: Artworks produced from barley straw paper by women artists for the online auction

Sustainability Impact

Climate

The initiative addresses Anadolu Efes’s agricultural value chain by creating a new circular use pathway for barley straw remaining after harvest. As the straw is treated as an agricultural by-product rather than operational waste, it is not reported under Scope 3 Category 5 (Waste Generated in Operations) and is not currently accounted for as a separate Scope 3 category in the company’s GHG inventory.

No greenhouse gas reduction figure is currently attributed to the initiative. Its climate contribution is therefore described as an enabling one: by transforming an existing agricultural by-product into a secondary raw material for creative industries, the project extends the material’s economic life and creates an additional circular route within the value chain. The volume of material brought into this new circular use is monitored as one of the initiative’s impact areas.

The wider enabling effect sits across the value chain rather than within the company’s own GHG inventory. Through the exhibition, design collaborations and material research, barley straw is being explored as a potential input for new applications, including the textile ecosystem. If developed at scale, this could create new substitution opportunities for conventional materials and influence future sourcing and material-use decisions across the partner network.

Nature

The environmental result is the reclassification of a residue stream. Barley straw that was previously regarded as waste in the field has been converted into a value-added secondary raw material and brought into a zero-waste cycle, so the material is retained in the economy rather than disposed of.

Sixteen artworks have been produced from the residue and entered the production cycle, and the volume of raw material returned to the circular economy is one of the measured impact areas alongside local economic development, women's employment and the fund volume created for the cooperatives.

The exhibition and the open call at the design school have opened work on the usability of the material as a new and sustainable input for the textile ecosystem, which would extend the diversion beyond craft volumes if it is demonstrated.

The systemic effect on the value chain is that the term waste has been redefined as secondary raw material within the partner network, and the linear economy reflexes of the participants have begun to shift towards circular practice.

Social

The social result is concentrated in the earthquake-affected region. Two active women's cooperatives, Eliyaman and Fortuna, have been placed at the centre of the raw material supply chain, and the local women involved carry the material knowledge of barley straw and the local production culture into the design work, shaping the direction of the initiative rather than executing instructions.

In total, 13 creative professionals, including three prominent Turkish designers and ten women artists, guided research, development and production and transferred knowledge to the cooperatives. One international exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York carried local production knowledge to a global academic setting and created a two-way learning route between Adıyaman and New York.

The economic benefit is designed to return to the producers. The proceeds of the planned online auction are targeted to be transferred to the cooperatives in full, at 100 per cent, and their use for the cooperatives' production processes, equipment needs, capacity development and sustainable production infrastructure has been secured. This is a target rather than a realised result, since the auction has not yet been held.

Five performance indicators are used: the number of artworks brought into the circular economy, the number of women's cooperatives supported, the number of artists and designers taking part, international value chain reach through exhibition and education, and the share of funds targeted for transfer to the cooperatives. Impact data are monitored annually and reported transparently to the standards of the 2025 integrated annual report.

Business Impact

Benefits

The initiative gives the company a use for a by-product of its own agricultural supply base that previously carried no value, and a relationship with the farming communities and cooperatives that supply it.

It creates a product route rather than a donation. Decoration products made from the material are planned for retail shelves, and the auction is designed to make the model self-financing, so the activity is structured to generate revenue that funds its own continuation instead of recurring as an annual expense.

Building on a long-standing partnership with UNDP Türkiye that began with the Future is in Tourism programme in 2007, the collaboration brings sustainable development expertise, internationally aligned methodology and a strong multi-stakeholder approach to the Second Harvest model. International visibility followed from the exhibition and open call at a New York design school, which positions the material and the model in front of the creative industries and design students who could become future users of it.

Costs

The cost base is the research and development and design time contributed to converting an untested material into products, the logistics of collecting and moving straw from the field to the cooperatives, the capacity development of the cooperatives through remote training and open-access technical video production, the exhibition and communications work, and the coordination effort a multi-partner model requires.

The binding constraint is the logistics and standardisation capacity of the local cooperatives. Handcrafted production from a variable natural material does not deliver consistent specifications on its own, and this risk is managed through distance training and open-access technical videos that build cooperative capability.

Revenue is not yet realised. The planned auction is one of several revenue-generating channels being developed alongside the sale of products created through the project and commercial collaborations such as retail window installations. These channels are intended to generate income for the cooperatives and support the continuation of the model. Until these revenue streams are activated, the initiative continues to be funded by the company and its partners.

Costs are contained by using existing residue rather than purchased inputs, by drawing on artists and designers for the research and development phase, and by building cooperative capability remotely rather than through repeated field missions. Artists may have contributed voluntarily; designers are commissioned/paid collaborators.

The initiative operates two complementary creative models: a recurring, voluntary artist participation model, in which original works enter an auction designed to generate ongoing support for the cooperatives; and a commissioned design model, in which designers work directly with the cooperatives through on-site, hands-on sessions in Adıyaman to develop reproducible, market-ready products that can continue to be produced and sold by the cooperatives.

Impact Beyond Sustainability And Business

Co-benefits

Participating women gain design, production and standardization skills that apply beyond this material, and the cooperatives gain a route into a value chain rather than a one-off order.

Through the Fashion Institute of Technology exhibition, the women’s production knowledge, craftsmanship and contribution to the material development process gain international visibility within an academic and design environment. The exhibition brings the work developed in Adıyaman to a global audience and highlights the women not only as producers, but as contributors of knowledge and local expertise.

Establishing a permanent production and workshop model in Adıyaman is the stated next step, which would convert a project structure into local productive capacity.

Potential Side-effects

Scaling demand faster than cooperative capacity would undermine the social purpose of the model, since the point of the design is that the cooperatives hold the production step rather than supply raw material to an industrial converter.

Straw availability follows the harvest, so production planning has to accommodate a seasonal input and storage between cycles.

Long-term income for the cooperatives depends on the successful activation and scaling of the project's developing sales channels, including product sales, retail collaborations, window installations and the planned auction.

Craft-scale conversion of an agricultural residue diverts a small volume relative to the quantity of straw produced. The material significance of the model lies in demonstrating the reclassification and in the textile ecosystem work it may enable, not in the tonnage handled so far.

Typical Business Profile

The model suits food, beverage and agricultural processing companies that source a crop directly and therefore have access to the residue that remains after harvest.

It is most relevant where the sourcing region also has a social development need, because the value of the model comes from combining the residue stream with local productive capacity rather than from the material alone.

Delivery engages corporate communications and relations, sustainability, agricultural sourcing and retail functions, working with a development agency, local cooperatives, a design partner and professional designers.

Approach

1. Start from the residue, not from the product: Identify a by-product of the company's own agricultural supply base that currently leaves the system as waste, and treat its reclassification as a secondary raw material as the design brief.

2. Choose a location where the material and the social need overlap: Site the pilot where the crop is sourced and where local productive capacity needs support, in this case Adıyaman in the earthquake-affected region, so that one intervention addresses both.

3. Put the local producers at the centre of the supply chain: Position the cooperatives as partners in design, research and decision-making rather than as recipients, so that their material knowledge and production culture determine what is made.

4. Run a guided research and development phase with design professionals: Bring in artists and designers to work alongside the producers on what the material can do, since an untested residue needs technical exploration before it can support a product range.

5. Build producer capability remotely: Use distance training sessions and open-access technical videos recorded in the field so that skills transfer does not depend on repeated visits, and so the same material can be reused when the model moves to a new location.

6. Create the demand route before scaling volume: Secure exhibition, auction and retail placement in parallel with production, because a residue-based product line without a sales channel returns to being a corporate social responsibility activity.

7. Direct the revenue back to the producers and ring-fence it: Commit the sales proceeds to the cooperatives and specify their use - production processes, equipment, capacity development and sustainable production infrastructure - so that the economic benefit is contractually anchored.

8. Define a small indicator set and report it annually: Track the artworks brought into the circular economy, cooperatives supported, creative professionals involved, international reach and the share of funds transferred, and publish the results within the company's annual reporting.

Stakeholders Involved

• Project leads: The project is carried out in partnership between Anadolu Efes and UNDP Türkiye. Anadolu Efes provides strategic direction and overall coordination, while UNDP Türkiye contributes its sustainable development methodology, local development perspective and stakeholder engagement approach. UNDP Türkiye is the strategic partner and designed the sustainable development methodology for the initiative, building on Anadolu Efes’ 18-year collaboration with UNDP and the partnership through the Future is in Tourism programme, which began in 2007.

• Company functions: Corporate Communications and Relations leads the overall coordination and delivery of the initiative, working closely with sustainability and agricultural sourcing.

• Main providers: MILKist Social Design Center and the Eliyaman and Fortuna women’s cooperatives work together on design, research and development, production and decision-making processes. Volunteer artists and designers, 13 creative professionals guide production and transfer knowledge to the cooperatives.

• Other: The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York hosted the exhibition and ran an open call through which international design students worked with the material. Experts in the agricultural ecosystem and the company's barley supply base contribute to sourcing. A two-way feedback mechanism is in place: the cooperatives' field experience and cultural knowledge are fed into the system continuously through the videos they record and the distance training they attend, and the process is adjusted on that basis, with pre-launch discussions coordinated to keep communication between partners active.

Key Parameters To Consider

The initiative was launched in 2025 and the base year for impact measurement is 2026. Impact data are monitored annually.

The methodology is deliberately flexible so that it is not confined to one geography, and the stated strategy for the next period is to extend the structure to other provinces where the company produces or sources raw material, and to establish a permanent production and workshop model in Adıyaman.

The main risk is the logistics and standardisation capacity of the local cooperatives, managed through distance training and open-access technical videos. The financing design assumes a self-renewing structure structure supported by multiple revenue channels, including product sales, commercial collaborations and the planned online auction.

Implementation And Operations Tips

Reclassifying a waste stream is a governance decision before it is a technical one. Naming the straw a secondary raw material changed how partners across the chain treated it, and that change of category is what made the rest of the model possible.

Place the producers in the supply chain, not at the end of a donation. The difference determines whether the model creates recurring income or a single grant, and it changes who holds the knowledge when the project team leaves.

Secure the sales route in parallel with production. Products made from a residue have no established market, and without exhibition, auction or retail placement the material returns to being waste with a story attached.

Use remote capability building. Distance training and open-access technical videos are what allow a design partnership to operate between a cooperative workshop and an international design school without continuous travel.

External Links

• Integrated annual report