How can we make the industry better for our planet?

27 Aug

When I was approached about joining Ellers Farm Distillery in the spring of 2021, I wasn’t actually looking to leave the role I was in at the time. But I was drawn in by the vision to have a big positive impact on the environment, the community, and workers all the while creating a thriving spirits business. I was hooked when Andy and Jamie didn’t laugh me out of the virtual meeting room with some of my long-term blue-sky ideas for the business. I’ve spent my career entirely in the food industry up to this point, so working in the drinks industry is an exciting new opportunity for me to sink my teeth (or reusable metal straw) into.

Being a newcomer might give me a slightly different perspective to veterans of the industry, and a couple of weeks into my new role I thought I’d take a look at some of the top environmental challenges for the drinks industry (I think the blogpost could quite easily turn into a dissertation if I covered societal challenges as well).

Water

I don’t think this one will actually be a surprise to anyone in the drinks industry – of course we need water to make drinks! But I think it’s all too easy to gloss over the fact that for every litre of finished spirit, there are upwards of 12 litres of wastewater associated with it [1]. I think there’s a common perception here in the UK that we’re not short of water because it rains so much. But in the UK we are looking at a public water supply deficit of 3,500 million litres per day by 2050 [2]. And globally, demand for water is projected by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to increase by 50% by 2030, and the UN projects a 40% global water shortfall by 2030.

But current water prices don’t reflect the looming scarcity of this valuable resource and I’d say that this lack of financial pressure probably means that water isn’t the highest on the agenda for many producers. The spirits industry is the most water-intensive sector of the food and drink industry and uses the most water overall, beating even the meat-processing sector [3]. As an industry, we need to look at opportunities to use less water in the first place and focus on how we can recover water that is currently classed as “waste”.

Glass

There are big benefits that come with using glass – it’s infinitely recyclable, nontoxic, and looks great on a shelf. But glass has its downsides – it’s heavy (which means more fuel is required to transport it from place to place) and it takes a lot of energy to create compared to other packaging types. For example, if all the plastic bottles in the world were made from glass instead, the additional carbon emissions would be equivalent to powering around 22 large coal-fired power plants [4]. When it comes to glass, recycled content has a big impact on the overall carbon emissions. Virgin glass (which is made without any recycled material) actually creates CO2 as it melts. When recycled glass is used, less energy is needed to melt the glass and no further CO2 is given off from the glass itself, meaning that for every tonne of recycled glass used, 185kg of CO2 is saved [5].

On average, the recycled content of all glass in the UK is about 38% (across green, amber, and clear) [6], which isn’t too bad. However, there will be some premium brands that will specify their glass must be super-clear (sometimes called super-flint) and therefore won’t contain any recycled content. Most manufacturers (us included!) want perfect colour consistency within and between production runs, which means careful control of the glass composition, which may mean using more virgin raw material depending on the quality of recycled glass available at any given time [7]. This creates a real tension between maximising environmental sustainability while maximising economic sustainability, as brands rely on their products being recognisable and attractive to drive sales. When I was working in food, we made the decision to switch from hard-to-recycle black plastic ready meal trays into trays made from 80% recycled plastic. At the time, the trays would come in a range of muted colours from earthy terracotta to different shades of green. Perhaps drinks brands should start to embrace a tonal rainbow of glass colours that allow for maximum recycled content at all times.

Single-use packaging

Reusing the same packaging is even better than recycling! I’m not suggesting that we all start placing our empty vodka bottles outside of our homes for the vodka delivery person to collect and refill, but we need to take a serious look at reusable options in our industry. There are direct-to-shopper solutions around at the moment like Loop. This scheme works by shoppers paying a small refundable deposit that pays for higher-quality reusable packaging which is then collected, washed, and finally refilled by the manufacturer before being placed back on shelves to be purchased once again. A solution like Loop is certainly innovative, but I think the real opportunity here lies in refillable packaging to the bar, pub, and restaurant trade. In the world of spirits, the trade is sold the same products as regular supermarket shoppers – heavy glass bottles in 500-750ml quantities, all of which require a lot of energy to transport and then need to go back into the recycling stream. My (potentially naive view) is that an establishment only needs a couple of bottles of each kind of spirit at once, and the ability to refill those bottles as needed. I think the spirits industry needs to develop a solution not dissimilar to how beer is delivered in kegs – a reusable, decantable bulk package that, once empty, is delivered back to the manufacturer via reverse logistics. But unlike beer, which is dispensed from kegs through a tap, the spirits could be decanted into the lovely shiny bottles designed by the brands, making them recognisable for the customer.

Energy

Distilleries use a lot of steam and hot water. The heat required is produced by boilers that are normally fired by fossil fuels (natural gas, LPG, or oil, to name a few). When combusted, these fossil fuels create greenhouse gasses and air pollution. It is possible to create steam and hot water using electricity, but this can be too costly as electricity prices can be more than double than the price of fossil fuels. But there is one potentially cost-effective fuel source for combustion boilers that I’m particularly excited about – hydrogen. Hydrogen can be produced in one of two ways:

Electrolysis – this requires electricity and a technology called an electrolyser to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Reformation – in this process hydrogen is extracted from a HydroCarbon such as natural gas, biogas or coal [8].

I’m particularly excited about the first method, often referred to a green hydrogen, as this allows for hydrogen to be produced entirely from renewable energy sources like wind or solar, creating an entirely emission-free energy source.

One of the pioneering distilleries in this space is Bruichladdich Distillery, who have stated their goal is to entirely decarbonise their operations by 2025. Bruichladdich, along with hydrogen developers Protium Green Solutions, have just completed a feasibility study to assess the technical and commercial viability of using green hydrogen at their site [9]. As an industry we have a responsibility to look at best-in-class examples like these and rapidly adopt emerging technologies wherever we can.

Agriculture

In the food industry, ruminants get a lot of beef (!) for their contribution to climate change. But crops can have a negative impact on the environment as well. In 2019, the agricultural sector was responsible for 10% of all the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions [10]. But the environmental impacts of agriculture aren’t just limited to climate change: land use change, water use, water pollution, biodiversity loss, and soil degradation are all impacts of our current agricultural system. Half of the world’s habitable (ice-and desert-free) land along with 70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture and 78% of ocean and freshwater eutrophication is caused by agriculture [11]. These pressures also have major impacts on biodiversity – of the of the nearly 39,000 species evaluated to be threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List, agriculture is listed as a threat for more than 19,000 of them. Further adding to the uniformity, 75% of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species [12]. This lack of biodiversity and the prevalence of large crop monocultures decreases the resilience of our agricultural systems by depleting soil nutrients and giving pests and disease more opportunities to thrive and spread.

I think we have a huge opportunity to use different crop varieties and to increase biodiversity in the drinks industry. We don’t face the same barriers as the food industry – people don’t need the knowledge of how to use different varieties of grains and fruits because we turn these inputs into liquids for them! I think a really beautiful example of this is the story of a retired chemical engineer who has scoured the Appalachian region of the United States to rescue over 1,000 varieties of apples that were on the verge of extinction. I recognise that massive conservation efforts might be a step too far for large scale industry, but there are other options for change that can take place now. One tangible step that could be taken is increasing the use of cover crops in agricultural systems. By challenging conventional practices (where soil is left bare after harvest) and instead using cover crops, farmers have an opportunity to increase soil health, decrease the need for artificial fertilisers, and take more carbon out of the atmosphere.

Cover crops are a good first step, but I think the holy grail for sustainable agriculture is agroforestry - a system wherein a variety of trees, shrubs, crops, and sometimes livestock are all contained within the same system. This improves soil health, increases productivity, increases resilience to pests and disease, improves wildlife habitats, and creates valuable public goods like clean air and water. Agroforestry works with nature to allow multiple species to thrive in balance with one another. I think we should be piloting projects like this across the industry and working with our farmer suppliers to prove that agricultural practices that are better for the environment can also provide a sustainable income source.

It’s always important to remember that sustainability has three aspects: environmental, social, and economic, and sometimes these aspects are in direct competition with one another. Though I am an idealist at heart, I know that we can’t be a business that does good if we don’t make any money! There is always a balance to be had between all three aspects of sustainability, and reaching harmonious perfection will be a never-ending quest – but one that I am incredibly excited to take on with the rest of my teammates at the farm!