Bacardi has cut its greenhouse gas emissions intensity worldwide by half, more than a year earlier than it initially projected.
The 50% reduction is equivalent to taking 15,000 cars off the road each year, reducing oil use by 165,000 barrels annually or installing 18 wind turbines.
Bacardi realised the goal early through systematic objectives laid out within its Good Spirited: Building a Sustainable Future global environmental sustainability platform, which reinforces the company’s years of leadership in corporate social responsibility.
It will set new targets for the future in line with with the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted in Paris at the end of last year, and supporting the UN’s sustainable development goals.
Bacardi chief executive officer Mike Dolan said: “This is great news, and we should all be very proud as we recognise that climate change poses one of the greatest challenges to the continued prosperity of society. We set an ambitious corporate responsibility goal, and we reached it nearly 15 months early. We not only achieved it; we surpassed it with outside-the-box thinking, hard work and the passion of Bacardi employees.”
The achievement has been supported by ‘hundreds’ of energy reduction initiatives implemented globally at the company’s distilleries, bottling lines, visitor centres and offices, and forms part of the spirit maker’s overall sustainability strategy.
Bacardi senior vice-president, global operations Jean Marc-Lambert said: “Through full-circle thinking, we were able to stay the course on this ten-year vision. We’re not stopping here – we’re working toward a net zero impact throughout the entire value chain in the production of our world-class brands. Our goal is to return to the environment as least as much as we take away.”
In particular, the company has focused on renewable electricity from wind turbines and heat recovery systems at its operations sites worldwide. Additionally, new biomass boilers at the Tequila Cazadores facility in Mexico, and Aberfeldy and Royal Brackla Scotch whisky distilleries in Scotland, reduce the amount of fuel needed for cleaner and reliable energy.
Instead of oil, renewable organic material such as wood pellets and chips, and agave fibres leftover from the production of the company’s premium brands, is used as fuel for the biomass boilers.
As a model of sustainability, the refurbished Cazadores facility in Jalisco state is 100% biomass fueled, with zero waste deposited in landfills – nothing goes to waste, not even the biomass boiler’s ashes, which are used to enrich the soil in the agave fields.
To cut its factories’ dependence on fossil fuels, Bacardi has simultaneously harnessed wind power in the production of Bacardi rum in Puerto Rico, and switched to hydropower to produce Martini vermouth and sparkling wines at its site in Italy.
The business will continue to address existing infrastructure with sustainability improvements and add ‘green’ distilleries that help improve the environment, like the Bombay Sapphire gin distillery in Hampshire, England.
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