SUSTAINABILITY
Are gin distillers doing their bit for the environment?
Bernadette sets the scene on the burning topic of the moment
Sustainability is a hot topic right now. Regardless of your stance, with recent environmental disasters and increasing global protest, we’re all becoming more aware of our environmental impact; we’re growing more conscious of our choices. In August the UK Government announced a £390 million investment into hydrogen and low carbon tech, with a project named ‘HySpirits’ exploring the possibilities in converting an existing craft distillery from liquid petroleum gas to hydrogen. Other various investigations into alternative methods keep springing up too. Earlier in the year, a study was published in Environmental International, that suggests using peas instead of wheat to make neutral grain spirit reduces environmental impact as the by products can be used to feed cattle.
Making deliveries by bike is charming and lovely, but it won’t offset the carbon footprint of a distillery
With the gin industry pushing for a sense of transparency in process in recent years, making a distillery more sustainable is a double whammy. Not only are you saving the environment, but it’s something attractive for your sales pitch too. On the surface it seems win-win all round and that’s great news to motivate these necessary changes. But how much are distillers doing? And, is it enough? When I reached out to ask these questions, I had a fantastic response across a wealth of distilleries, proudly listing various method’s they’ve implemented, and in some instances turning to each other to discuss their choices and give guidance. Initially, it was very positive to discover that the efforts were more commonplace than I was expecting.
That said, researching for this has been a bit of a rollercoaster. I’ll admit, I’m keen to highlight sustainability as important, but it seems I have been naïve to the depth of the situation. It’s a complex business and, although the environmentally conscious mindset is booming, it’s still early days.
I wanted to give a broad overview on a range of distilleries. With such a great response from smaller distilleries, I can’t name them all, but will credit where relevant. It was also important to speak to Bombay Sapphire. Bombay are renowned for their eco-friendly processes, having won the ‘Outstanding’ design-stage BREEAM accreditation in
2014. Initially it seemed that with their size, they have more capability. The information
I was sent on this certainly backed that up, with the two-page list detailing their practices not missing a single trick. It’s a testament to what can be achieved through thoughtfulness. For example, using one supplier for fruit and veg that buys locally and travels in the early hours to minimise engine use. There’s a lot of fat trimming, for example reducing the cardboard in packaging from three-ply down to two. Plus, the list also details further work that the waste contractor can do, such as melting down plastic waste and using it for fuel. This, along with other larger elements such as solar, water turbine power and the beautiful greenhouse at Laverstoke providing heat and power for the distillery adds up to something that’s incredibly considerate. And it seems that this hasn’t just come from Bombay, but also parent company Bacardi Ltd., who have implemented their ‘Good Spirited’ internal campaign in house. So, it does seem like they are doing a lot, and they need to be. Because their carbon footprint is so much bigger than smaller distilleries that it takes an awful lot of effort to reduce it.
There are a huge variety of innovative ideas amongst the smaller distilleries too. They need to be thoughtful of every part of their process. Responses have been varied. They included everything from delivering locally by bike, to making additional products from leftover distillation botanicals, while ecofriendly packaging has been a big hitter. I’ve become conscious of the amount of packing used in transportation and it’s great to see attractive alternatives on the market like the honeycomb cardboard packaging adopted by Thunderflower, or six bottle cardboard boxes negating the use for plastic packaging as adopted by Isle of Wight Distillery.
Re-use of packaging and bottles is a popular choice through refill stations and attractive bottles suggested for secondary use as lamps or tumblers. Collection and refilling methods vary and you need to ensure you’re not offsetting the benefit with the impact of transportation. Re-use of glass is
complicated. As it stands clear glass bottles are only made of 25 per cent recycled glass and considering the added weight for transportation, the maths states it’s more eco-friendly to recycle cans than it is bottles.
Trawling through the lists of what distilleries are doing, none of the information really quantifies the difference it’s actually making. The reason is that it’s not easy. There are outside companies that do this, but they charge a lot. Where do people find time to do it themselves when running a distillery?
To use an example in Two Drifters Brewery, (not gin, I know, but relative), considering barley as an ingredient, you need to quantify the footprint for growing the barley, transporting it, storing it, producing and discarding of waste. These factors are considered with a ‘chess-like’ complexity. This will give you a carbon footprint. So, transferring this idea to gin, you’d have to factor this in for every botanical you’re using and that’s just botanicals.
Once you’ve got an idea of these figures, you can then improve processes to reduce it. This can be done by decisions involving contractors, for example using green energy. There are in house decisions such as reduction of packaging or using an electric vehicle. Once you streamline you can reduce the footprint further by offsetting. You can offset using companies such as Climeworks, who have created a ‘Direct Air Capture’ plant that collects carbon dioxide from the air and converts it to chalk, before it’s put back into the ground. This is costly. It’s not cheaper to be energy efficient, if anything it’s more expensive. But there are areas where you can save and so still run a viable business.
By implementing these changes, a distillery can achieve Carbon Neutrality and with offsetting, in Two Drifters case, become Carbon Negative. So, their business is not only no longer contributing to the issue of CO2, but it’s reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere globally. Going the extra
mile in the early days will make a huge difference in the long run.
There have been few examples of figures of carbon footprint figures. This begs the question, is this really being thought about? All improvements are good and it’s great that distilleries are doing what they’re doing, and we’re going in the right direction. However, we can’t rest on our laurels.
The danger here is that if a few measures are brought in, enough for a distillery to say it is big on sustainability, that might be seen as adequate when there is still an environmental impact. Making local deliveries by bike is charming, but it won’t offset the carbon footprint of a distillery.
So, what has this investigation taught me? Firstly, and most importantly, that it’s looking positive. There are a lot of distilleries out there stepping up to their responsibility to do their bit. There are a whole host of creative and innovative ideas that can be implemented in all distilleries, from the nanos to the giants. I think, if we are really to achieve something, we need to look deeper. Some things look great on paper, but without quantifying the effect, we risk continuing to damage the environment, blinkered by a label of sustainability granted from a few good processes.
The drive needs to be genuine rather than wanting another feather for the hat. A few sustainable processes do not make an eco-friendly distillery. That said, I’ve been conscious I didn’t want to undermine anybody’s efforts. I just want to get the reality check into the romanticism of sustainability. The rose-tinted glasses need to come off for us to make real progress.