SIAL Daily caught up with Head of Sustainability & Responsibility Engagement at Pernod Ricard, Gwyneth Weller, after her participation in the round table at the SIAL CSR Summit on Sunday, to discuss the company’s sustainability initiatives
Pernod Ricard aims to address the fact that 95% of its carbon emissions stem not from direct operations, but from agriculture, transportation, and packaging. By involving suppliers, the wine and spirits maker is creating a win-win situation for the company, as well as its partners and customers.
How does Pernod Ricard integrate the principles of social and environmental responsibility?
At Pernod Ricald we have a 2030 corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, “Good Times from a Good Place”, which addresses the environmental and the social risks of our company, and is also directly linked to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. The strategy is built on four pillars spanning all of our activities, which we refer to as “grain to glass.” In other words, it encompasses everything from the natural ingredients we source through to the glass our consumer holds up.
“A key point for us is regenerative agriculture and we’ve been working with farmers to transition to these practices.”
What specific initiatives have you put in place to reduce the carbon footprint in Pernod Ricard’s supply chain?
At Pernod Ricard, only 5% of our carbon emissions are actually linked to our direct operations, meaning our distilleries, wineries and other operational sites. This means that 95% of our emissions are in our value chain. So, in order to tackle our carbon footprint, we need to work with our farmers and suppliers.
When it comes to distillation, one of our big initiatives has been the implementation of a heat recovery technology called mechanical vapour re-compression (MVR), which we’ve implemented in our Scottish distilleries. Beyond that, this summer we announced shipping by sail, using wind power, of our cognac and champagne from France to New York, through a start-up called TOWT. This helps us reduce carbon emissions associated with that route by more than 90%.
Another example is in packaging. When we produce our products, they are put into bottles and shipped around the world. The idea was to export in bulk instead, in thousand-litre containers. These containers, called ecoTOTES from a start-up called ecoSPIRITS, are sent to bars, restaurants, and hotels where the staff uses the product and then sends back the container. They can be refilled and reshipped up to 100 times.
Another key point for us is regenerative agriculture and we’ve been working with farmers to transition to these practices.
How does Pernod Ricard involve suppliers and partners in its CSR approach?
Our procurement teams work very closely with our suppliers. Every supplier has to go through a system where we ask them to identify the risks linked to their activity and we work hand-in-hand with them to understand the pressures they have to find the best way forward. When we first designed our roadmap in 2019, we did an extensive exercise with our suppliers to understand their priorities and needs. This year we upgraded our strategy and are again consulting them to see if there is anything we need to change.
Reconciling economic performance and environmental responsibility
For Ms Weller, meeting environmental goals is not in opposition to business objectives. Pernod Ricard’s ecoSPIRITS bulk initiative, she maintains, is not only a good environmental credential, but also a money saver from a supply and packaging perspective. “It saves money for our end users because they don’t have to manage waste. It improves how they work as well, meaning that there’s a real business case behind this initiative that goes beyond the environment.” Ms Weller also argues that the company’s CSR programmes not only have an impact on the environment, but also take into account that the environment has and will have an impact on Pernod Ricard’s performance as a business. “Essentially, everything we do for environmental and social sustainability is about business resilience because in the long term, the cost of not doing anything will be far greater than the cost of doing it.”