How we measure and carbon offset The Bairn

We measure and offset the carbon emissions for every product we make here at Ellers Farm Distillery, including our New Make Spirit range, The Bairn. We asked the team here at the distillery to vote for their favourite offsetting project and the winning project actually supports two fantastic initiatives.

The first is a clean cookstove project in Maharashtra, India which improves human health and reduces wood consumption. In the villages of Maharashtra, 85% of households still rely on traditional cookstoves. This cooking method requires lots of wood and causes high exposure to smoke indoors, which poses a health risk especially to women and children. The aim of this project is to facilitate cleaner cooking practices and improve health by providing improved cookstoves to indigenous households and families living below the poverty level in the area. The portable cookstoves are made of cast iron and require less firewood, reduce indoor air pollution and CO2 emissions. Thousands of households are provided with an improved cookstove through the project activities. A decreasing demand for firewood helps to minimise deforestation and has a positive impact on the biodiversity in the area.

Clean cookstove project in Maharashtra, India.

The second initiative supports Plastic Bank’s efforts in international ocean protection by removing 10kg of plastic from coastal regions for every tonne of CO2 saved through the clean cookstoves project. Plastic Bank empowers ethical recycling communities in vulnerable coastal areas. Community members exchange plastic at local collection branches for life-improving benefits, such as health and life insurance, meal vouchers, and secure income. The communities work to intercept plastic before it enters the sea. Marine ecosystems are sensitive to pollution and play an important role in minimising the impacts of climate change because Oceans store a quarter of the CO2 from the atmosphere and 93% of the heat caused by the greenhouse effect. Warming, overfishing and pollutants like the 12 million tonnes of annual plastic waste endanger this balancing function.

Ocean protection initiative by Plastic Bank.

For every bottle of The Bairn you purchase via The Evolution Collection (learn more here), you support both of these fantastic projects. You can read more about our efforts to reduce our climate impact and the project we support here.