Sustainable Agriculture
By 2030, we want all the agricultural practices defined in our Absolut cultivation concept to be verified as sustainable.
We evaluate our cultivation concept annually and continue to drive it forward. In 2021, we are launching a version 2.0 reducing climate-affecting emissions from cultivation and improving biodiversity. We have set up a credit system where farmers will need to take different actions to get our sustainability premium.
The impact of modern farming on biodiversity is a global and accelerating problem, even if the Swedish farming landscape is definitely not the worst one. We’re already advising farmers on what they can do to combat this, including increased crop rotation, providing beehives, introducing ‘leaving zones’ and keeping water areas but in version 2.0 of our cultivation concept we will raise the bar.
Focusing on good varieties of wheat has been a constant theme of our cultivation concept and we adapt. Today, in response to climate change, we’re working with plant breeders on drought-tolerant varieties, as well as resistance to upcoming threats from ‘new’ fungi and insects.
Climate Neutral Production
Our ambition is to create a climate neutral product by 2030, so our efforts to reduce CO2 emissions both from our own facilities and throughout our value chain continue.
In 2018, we started using the fusel oils left over from distillation to replace LPG. We now use all our waste spirits this way. Our target is to replace all fossil fuels at our facilities by 2025 and we are even looking at the possibility to capture and store the biogenic CO2 from fermentation, which would make the distillery carbon negative..
Already one of the most energy-efficient distilleries on the planet, we’re striving to do even better. By 2025, we want to reduce our energy use in the production of vodka by 15% compared to 2018 levels. We also want to reduce our burden on the public electricity grid and are considering generating and storing electricity ourselves.
Outside our distillery walls, we continue to work closely with suppliers and partners to reduce our CO2 emissions from transportation. Approximately half of the climate impact of our products comes from the production of the glass bottles. Glass is a great material in so many ways but the production is very energy-demanding. We are getting close to a solution for using renewable fuels in their production, which would naturally be a major game-changer for us. Also we work continuously to increase the use of recycled glass in the bottles (already we use more than 50% recycled glass), which is also an important action in order to reduce the climate impact from glass production.
We’ve calculated an emission factor for our wheat using 2018 as a base year and, as an interim step, are working to reduce the climate impact from wheat production by 10% by 2025.
To help us achieve this, we’ve set requirements for our wheat farmers regarding the use of Best Available Technology (BAT) fertilizers, which have a significantly reduced carbon footprint. Almost 80% of our wheat purchased in 2018 was produced using BAT fertilizers. We’re aiming to increase this to 100% by 2025.
By 2025 we want 90% of our local transport of wheat, glass, spirits, stillage, cardboard and caps to run on renewable fuel. We’ve also started running all transportation to customers in Sweden on biodiesel.
Moving out into the global distribution chain provides more challenges since we’re only a small player in a big system, but we’re determined to reduce our carbon footprint where we can. We’re constantly working, for example, to optimize the fill rates in containers transporting our products to the markets. Since 2008, we’ve reduced the number of containers per year by 1,000 for around the same volume.
Our overall target is to reduce CO2 emissions from distribution by 5% by 2025.
Water Neutral Production
Our ambition is to achieve water neutral production by 2030. To do this, we’ll need to both use water more efficiently and recycle all the water that doesn’t go into our vodka, so none of it is wasted.
As a stepping stone, we’ve set an interim target for 2025 of reducing our water consumption by a further 20% compared to 2018 levels.
To help us get there, we’ve first of all been looking at reducing the amount of water used in our fermentation process, but without it affecting the character of our vodka. By increasing the dry matter in our stillage by 2%, we’ve reduced water consumption by 5 m³/h. One consequence of this is less stillage for animal feed, but by adding spent lees from our distillation process we’ve kept the levels the same. At the same time, this has reduced the amount of water going to sewage by 5 m³/h.
By recycling water from the distillation process and re-using it during fermentation, we’ve reduced our water consumption by a further 5 m³/h.
Material Neutral Production
By 2030, our ambition is to have circular resource use throughout the entire production chain.
At a local level, we aim to recycle even more of the waste materials from our facilities and to reduce the amount sent to incineration by 50% by 2025.
By 2025, we also want all our packaging to be recyclable, compostable, reusable or bio-based. Laying the groundwork for this, Pernod Ricard produced new Sustainable Packaging Guidelines detailing which materials we can use, which to replace and what with. Since then, we’ve increased the amount of recycled glass in our iconic bottles to 50%. We still want to reduce the glass weight further, which will reduce the bottle’s environmental impact and energy consumption.
Along with improvements to our existing packaging, we’re also developing entirely new solutions. In 2019, we joined a progressive group of leaders, brought together by Paboco® (The Paper Bottle Company) to pioneer the next phase of packaging liquids across several industries. We’ve since developed a first-generation prototype of a paper bottle. Made of biodegradable FSC-certified paper with a barrier of recycled plastic, the prototype has been through initial consumer and quality testing and now we are working on the next generation.
The biggest challenge to close the loop on materials is achieving 100% recycling in our markets. Although many countries are improving, the world’s recycling systems aren’t quite there yet. Absolut may only be a small cog in a big machine, but we will continue to promote re-use and recycling in all markets for as long as it takes.
Leading The Way
Absolut has always believed in adopting a sustainable development approach. And just as we’re now striving to reach fruits higher up the tree after picking off the lower- hanging ones, we also see our role developing.
After years of being a responsible business and creating our own strategies for everything from the cultivation of the wheat to distribution of the finished product, our ambition is for Absolut to be recognized as a leader in sustainability by 2030 – a role model for the global spirits industry.
We only have one planet and there’s always more to be done, but we’re proud to be leading the way.
