Our results reflect the Identification stage of the CHIA and are presented under the three levels of the CHIA framework. Level A explores the political, economic and regulatory context of CUB’s operations. Level B examines CUB’s practices and products that impact on health and equity. Level C considers the direct impacts of the company’s practices on daily living conditions across five domains: workforce and working conditions, social conditions, natural environment, adverse health impacts, and economic conditions.

Table 3 summarises the data coded against the three-level CHIA framework. Node summaries were compiled according to the main research focus which was to identify the positive and negative aspects of the TNC’s operations populating each subsection across the three CHIA levels. The type of data source (documents including corporate literature, media items, or interviews) was noted against each individual summary listing to assist with the analysis. The summaries were discussed in team meetings and informed the compilation of Table 3 with its notations highlighting potential health impacts, their likelihood, and level of significance.

Table 3 Corporate Health Impact Assessment FrameworkCHIA level A: how regulatory structures impact on TNCs

Corporate Health Impact Assessment level A captures information related to the global regulatory environment, the political and economic environment, and international institutions. The data included global level information on CUB’s parent body Asahi’s codes of conduct, sustainability principles, and compliance with regulations, including taxation.

CHIA level B: practices and products that impact on health and equity

In this section we discuss CUB’s corporate structure, political and business practices, and products, distribution, and marketing. CUB was established in 1907 and produces beer, cider, mixed drinks and spirits. It employs approximately 1700 staff across breweries, offices and distribution centres, with Au$1.54 billion revenue raised in 2019 [51]. Over the last decade the rapidly changing ownership between major global alcohol TNCs has affected CUB. Between 2011 and 2019 CUB had four changes of ownership. In 2019 CUB was acquired by the Japanese TNC Asahi Group Holdings for Au$16 billion.

CUB’s political practices

Carlton and United Breweries’ political practices include actions which influence the regulatory or political environment, and highlights the role of affiliated industry bodies, within Australia. CUB, together with the brewers Coopers and Lion, account for 80% of Australian beer production and sales. These brewers comprise the three members of the peak alcohol body, Brewers Association of Australia, of which CUB’s CEO, Peter Filipovic, is the chair. The Brewers Association lobbies government on behalf of its members, and is affiliated with a range of other peak industry bodies which ‘play a role in influencing the policy and reputation of the sector’ [52]. These bodies include Alcohol Beverages Australia (ABA), the national body representing the interests of alcohol beverages manufacturers, distributors, retailers and drinkers. Both Asahi and CUB hold corporate membership of the Australian Hotels Association (AHA), the peak body representing the interests of employers in the hospitality and liquor industry. The AHA provides a ‘strong platform for influence’, focusing on alcohol and gaming policy, trade practices, workplace relations, taxation, and business regulation [53].

Alcohol marketing is governed by a voluntary code, the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code (ABAC) scheme for responsible alcohol marketing [54]. Carlton and United Breweries is a signatory, with Brewers Association representatives on the management committee. Although it has a degree of accountability and transparency, the scheme lacks both independent review and monitoring and consequential sanctions for non-compliance; thus undermining its credibility [55].

Carlton and United Breweries is also a member and funder of DrinkWise Australia, a Social Aspects and Public Relations Organisation (SAPRO) and large-scale charity established in 2005; funded by voluntary contributions from the alcohol sector in Australia [56, 57]. When it was first established, it received funding of $5 million from the alcohol industry and $5 million over 4 years from the Australian Government. Since 2009 it has been funded exclusively by alcohol producers, distributors and retailers [57].

Carlton and United Breweries’ links to peak industry bodies also allows it to influence government through direct and indirect lobbying, and through political donations that are often targeted at times of critical policy debates or immediately before elections [58]. The power and influence of lobbying and political donations was raised by several research participants. One stated:

I think there are lots of decisions made in government that are unduly influenced by industry connections, either through lobbying or donations or the ‘revolving doors’ between boards and governments. (Academic #2)

Alcohol industry lobbying included opposition to the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) proposals for stronger mandatory pregnancy warning labels to help reduce the incidence of FASD [59]. According to one respondent:

I know the Brewers Association was one of the groups that was lobbying hard and lobbying the Minister and met with the Minister early this year to push back on mandatory labelling (for FASD). (Policy actor #3)

CUB’s business practices

Business practices include labour relations, taxation strategies, and use of litigation and trade and investment treaties in ways to influence regulation. Carlton and United Breweries engages in a range of business practices that may benefit the community. Its website reveals sustainability goals including commitment to fuelling local operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025; a commitment matched by its parent body Asahi [60]. Carlton and United Breweries has recently engaged in a range of corporate philanthropy initiatives, including during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Carlton and United Breweries also commits to reducing its environmental footprint through schemes such as circular packaging, going plastic-free or using recycled plastic by 2025, and investing in ‘smart agriculture’ and water stewardship. It supports diversity and inclusion in the workplace, equal pay and inclusive parental leave [61].

However, negative aspects of CUB’s business operations have also been documented. These include taxation practices, opposition to mandatory health warnings, and moves towards labour hire contracting with reduced pay and conditions for workers [62]. It is reported that although parent body Asahi generated $1.7 billion in total revenues in Australia in the 2017–2018 financial year, it paid only $1.2 million in taxation, none in the previous 2 years, and a total of $16.4 million between 2013 and 2015 [63, 64]. Interpreting raw figures and monitoring corporate taxation liability and compliance is complex due to the interplay between international and domestic rules and the capacity for strategic, legal taxation practices [8]. As corporate taxation is paid on profits, changing business structures and ownership affect corporate profitability and thus taxation liability. Carlton and United Breweries’ economic contribution from a range of other taxes is discussed in CHIA level C.

CUB’s products, distribution and marketing

The CUB website provides extensive information on its product range; including beers with no, low, medium, and high alcohol content, and different nutritional and energy formulations [65, 66]. Carlton and United Breweries spent Au$12.3 million on media exposure in 2016 [67], and engages in creative marketing strategies to promote products according to customer profiling. For example, zero-alcohol beer is presented with similar packaging, branding and logos as its full-strength beer. While offering choice, and ostensibly being marketed to health conscious consumers, alcohol-free beer has been criticised for potentially targeting young people as future alcohol consumers. Carlton and United Breweries’ website shows imagery suggesting that marketing is mainly directed to young adults through sporting or celebratory contexts [68]. CUB also highlights the importance of digital reach for successful marketing, as revealed in the words of CUB’s Head of Integrated Marketing:

Experience is not a place; it’s everywhere thanks to digital, and we want our brands to deliver experiences everywhere and anywhere we can play a meaningful role in someone’s life [69].

One respondent stated that CUB:

… has been successful in promoting a drinking culture in Australia that is centered around their products; and glorifying that culture has been very successful for their profits but not very successful in terms of the harms that alcohol causes and the way it’s been embedded in Australia society. They are an iconic brand … so they have helped to normalise very high levels of drinking. (Civil society actor #3)

This respondent also spoke about targeted marketing to Indigenous people:

If [profit] means marketing to vulnerable people who drink excessively, well so be it. If there’s no regulatory framework to stop them doing that, they will. … It’s quite rational to do that from the point of view of their shareholders. (Civil society actor #3)

Carlton and United Breweries’ alcohol advertising is monitored under the voluntary ABAC code which provides advertising guidelines and a complaints mechanism [70]. Of the 61complaints received against CUB since 2006, between 1st January 2020 and 1st January 2021, 12 complaints were adjudicated, with four being upheld and eight being dismissed [71]. However, as one respondent maintained:

Voluntary self-regulation is utterly ineffective. It notionally prohibits targeting of children and young people and that’s complete baloney. It does not prevent the exposure of children and young people to alcohol... The marketing through sport is just everywhere and it’s unconstrained … You have children seeing their idols as walking, running billboards for alcohol. (Academic #1)

One participant noted that the alcohol industry was marketed as an essential service or an essential good during the pandemic, and that restrictions imposed on liquor retailers were lifted very quickly following industry lobbying (Civil society actor #2). CUB is reported as considering a direct-delivery model for consumers [72].

CHIA level C: direct impact of CUB practices on daily living conditions

In CHIA level C we highlight the direct impact of CUB’s practices on daily living conditions in five domains: 1) workforce and working conditions, 2) social conditions, 3) the natural environment), 4) health and equity outcomes, and 5) economic conditions. Indicative findings are highlighted below, with additional findings summarised in Table 4.

Table 4 Direct impact of TNC practices on daily living conditionsWorkforce and working conditions

Carlton and United Breweries currently operates under the 2018–2021 Enterprise Agreement established by the Fair Work Act 2009 [73]. CUB’s operational workforce is covered by enterprise agreements negotiated with relevant unions and approved by the Fair Work Commission; with rates of pay exceeding the relevant modern award. The majority of operational staff work a 35 hour week with offers of job sharing, working from home, part-time employment, support for carers, flexible working hours, paid parental leave, and gender inclusivity [61, 74].

However, negative employment practices have also been reported in recent years [75, 76]. In June 2016, CUB sacked 55 highly skilled Melbourne maintenance workers before offering them alternative contractual arrangements as unskilled workers under external labour hire provisions, with greatly reduced wages. This became the subject of a Senate enquiry into corporate avoidance of the Fair Work Act [77, 78]. In 2020 the Fair Work Ombudsman investigated CUB’s self-reported unintentional underpayment of $1million affecting 635 hospitality workers over a 10 year period [79].

Workplace health and safety is also a critical employment issue affecting both individual workers, employers, and the broader community [80]. SafeWork Australia is Australia’s national work, health and safety policy agency, with regulation governed at state and territory level under 10 separate statutes [81].

SafeWork Queensland noted that the company undertakes continuous improvement in its safety performance by both traditional engineering based approaches and investment in systems and practices [82].

Social conditions

The impact of CUB’s operations on social conditions include any effects on local goods and services and local community life. The Brewers Association’s positive framing is that the alcohol industry moderates loneliness and social isolation, especially in rural communities.

However, one in six Australians consumes alcohol at levels placing them at lifetime risk of alcohol related disease or injury [83]. Respondents recounted a range of negative social conditions related to alcohol consumption. One was fear of alcohol-fuelled violence, linked to long trading hours in a regional setting:

People were literally too afraid to go out of their house at night … What I saw was complete capitulation by the politicians, our elected democratic officials … It was quite clear that they were in the pockets of industry and there were demonstrable harms and an average three or four deaths a year. (Civil society actor #1)

This respondent also spoke of the negative social conditions, particularly affecting Indigenous communities, which has received national opprobrium [84]:

We have had the recent case in Darwin, first time the biggest Dan Murphy’s (Woolworths owned liquor outlet) being put between two vulnerable Aboriginal settlements. And we have the battles and the struggles occurring in northwest Western Australia [and Queensland] … We have these nodes of community reaction where the industry is disjointing, profiting, and capitalising from these most vulnerable communities. (Civil society actor #1)

Subsequently this placement decision was overturned based on findings of a review into the level of community consultation undertaken by Woolworths [85].

Alcohol marketing is a powerful tool, and four companies, including CUB, are responsible for 60% of commercial partnerships. While sporting codes market their sports and events as ‘family-friendly’, they allow direct promotion of products that have negative social and health impacts; especially for young people [86, 87].

The natural environment

This part of the CHIA focuses on CUB’s impact on the natural environment including ecological systems, land and water, greenhouse gases and pollution. A positive environmental contribution includes Asahi’s, and thus CUB’s commitment to using green electricity in its Australian and New Zealand operations by 2025. Their aim is to achieve global carbon neutrality by 2050 [88]. Carlton and United Breweries is also a signatory to the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO); a voluntary agreement to encourage packaging waste minimisation. It supports Greenfleet, a company which assists CUB to calculate and offset its fleet emissions. The document and media analysis did not identify negative environmental impacts related to CUB’s specific operations. However, respondents noted negative aspects of the broader alcohol industry. These include the high volume of water required to manufacture alcoholic beverages which could instead be used for food production, and the problem of littering. One respondent spoke of the danger of broken beer bottles, or litter that can be employed as weapons; with another graphically recounting the negative local environmental outcomes of risky consumption:

… all the urine, vomit and blood running down our streets, in [stated city] is not real good. The [named] council spent over $1 million a year on ratepayers’ money, like mine, to clean up after it. (Civil society actor #1) …

Adverse health impacts

This aspect of the CHIA reports on adverse health impacts linked to alcohol consumption. As Livingston and Callinan [18] state, 10% of alcohol consumers account for 50% of consumption; with a respondent (Civil society actor #6) also noting that 80% of alcohol is sold to 20% of consumers. However, common framing by the alcohol industry is that population-wide policies that will affect ‘moderate’ drinkers should not be implemented because harmful consumption is confined to a minority of heavy drinkers, [89].

Alcohol-related violence has major health impacts. Such violence is especially related to venues with late alcohol trading. As Kypri and Livingston [90] explain, alcohol consumption increases the tendency for aggression, leads to misinterpretation of social cues, and impairs problem-solving skills. One participant explained the context of these behaviours:

We reached the stage where (named city) was a literal bloodbath, we had 20,000 young people come to our CBD every weekend from over 100 km away … They could come here, drink themselves stupid to 5:00 am. There was insufficient police, they were going from one door to another. There was no preventative work and that’s why we had the highest levels of alcohol violence in [the state]. (Civil society actor #1).

The impacts of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, another key issue related to risky drinking behaviours, was highlighted in the research. The Brewers Association has called for a tailored focus on Indigenous communities, rather than adopting population-wide approaches [91]. However, a respondent instead situated FASD as part of a continuum of negative health outcomes that are both community-wide and across the lifespan:

There are so many particular groups that are affected [by alcohol] that in essence it becomes a whole of community issue … you’ve got the full spectrum of children from unborn through to teenagers. And then alcohol in their early adult years often see increased level of risky drinking. There are the concerns about violence and impacts on young relationship and family relationships … Then you go a bit older you’ve got women of child-bearing age, there are particular impacts again through FASD... Then into adulthood there’s alcohol dependence, there’s alcohol caused cancers and other social and health issues. So really through the whole life span there are risks. (Civil society actor #4)

Economic conditions

This aspect of CHIA refers to CUB’s impact on the national or local economy, production systems, and public revenue. The Brewers Association states that the beer industry alone contributes billions of dollars to government revenue and supports a significant supply chain which supports nearly 100,000 jobs, underpinning $16 billion a year in economic activity. This activity includes beer production, the contribution of the supply chain and the on-license and off-license retailing [92]. Carlton and United Breweries’ website highlights the scope of its own economic contribution by employing approximately 1700 workers in six breweries, distribution centres, and offices around Australia, and its support for thousands of local jobs in transport, retail, hospitality, manufacturing and agriculture.

Although it is not possible to quantify CUB’s overall economic contribution, the Brewers Association notes that its three members (CUB, Lion and Coopers) collectively employ more than 13,500 Australians in brewing, sales, professional services and logistics. Beer taxes raised $3.593 billion in 2018–2019 [92]. However, economic investment is mediated by externalised industry costs estimated to be Au$36 billion annually [10].

A summary of CHIA level C findings on the positive and negative aspects of CUB’s products and operations on daily living conditions across the five domains are included in Table 4.

Estimated health impacts: CUB’s share of burden of beer-attributable deaths

As part of the CHIA we conducted an ecological study to estimate alcohol attributable fractions and burdens of death due to congestive heart diseases, diabetes mellitus, stroke, breast cancer, bowel cancer, and injury.

Carlton and United Breweries has had a significant share of the market but in a mixed pattern. The highest beer market share was recorded in 2010, 2020 and 2011/2019; owning 45.7, 44.1 and 43.1% stake respectively. 2016 was the lowest stake with 30.1% [93]. Such a significant share contributed to substantial beer attributable deaths. For example, of the 6.8 deaths per 100,000 population in 2010, 6.2 were alcohol related fatal injuries, and 2.6 deaths were specifically due to beer; of which CUB contributed to 1.2 deaths. In the year 2010, there were 3.3 alcohol related Bowel cancer deaths per 100,000 population and 1.4 deaths were attributed to beer of which CUB’s proportion was 0.6. The cost of treating people with these diseases is mainly externalised to the public purse.

Table 5. describes the alcohol attributable burden and beer attributable burden in Australia from 1990. CUB’s proportion and market share is included from 2010. (See Supplementary Data for full details).

Table 5 Alcohol and beer attributable burden of deaths and CUB’s share in Australia