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Best sustainable alcohol brands 2019 - eco wines, beers and spirits you must know about
Best sustainable alcohol brands 2019 - eco wines, beers and spirits you must know about
So you are trying your best to be sustainable in 2019 and are looking for sustainable alcohol brands to enjoy?
Lets face it, alcohol is important to almost any and every social occasion. Even the act of holding a drink when talking to strangers helps us to relax.
To ignore it from our best sustainable products guide would therefore be wrong.
Many of us will be attending festivals, parties and summer blow outs this summer, and sustainability should still be an option.
Alcohol by its very nature can be incredibly unsustainable. To make it requires energy, raw ingredients, water management, packaging and waste.
It is therefore important to consider what brands you are drinking this summer if you are trying to adopt an eco-friendly lifestyle. Festivals, parties and picnics are not something that suddenly means you should forget about your impact.
Let’s start as we mean to go on, covering one of the most important factors for any social experience - the best sustainable alcohol brands in 2019.
Sustainable alcohol brands - spirits
Absolut claims to be one of the world’s most energy efficient distilleries. Located in Åhus, Sweden, its facilities are carbon-neutral and aims to achieve zero-emissions, zero-waste and 100% recycling by 2040. Whilst reaching these goals, it will continue to produce over half a million bottles of vodka a day. Absolut also give back, supporting numerous national and international charities. As well as all this, they also harvest, produce and hire locally, reducing the need for carbon intensive supply chains.
Absolut Elyx Vodka, made from 40% recycled glass. Every drop grown and produced within 15 mile radius. Give back scheme.
Bacardiis another spirit brand leading the way in sustainable production, operating a global environmental initiative called ‘Good Spirited: Building a Sustainable Future’. So far, this programme has helped reduce landfill waste by 35 tonnes and lowered carbon emissions by 90% at its US rum bottling plant. It also aims to source 100% sustainable sugarcane by 2022.
Bombay Sapphire Gin’s UK distillery has been winning awards for its sustainable policies. This is aided by a biomass boiler that uses the by-products of the production process to help power the distillery, helping to create a circular system whilst reducing waste and lowering energy demands. Due to its location, it is also partially powered by renewable hydro-energy.
Similarly, Glengoyne Whisky in the UK is powered by 100% renewable energy and has won multiple awards in recognition of its efforts. It is also partnered with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, helping to conserve the environment and reduce CO2.
Sustainable alcohol brands - beer
It’s been shown that the “majority” of beer drinkers are willing to pay more for sustainable beer than regular beer. This has provided an incentive for beer makers to get creative and reduce their impact.
This doesn’t just mean the small brands are getting involved in the sustainable action. Large scale brewers are also championing new paths, aiding by their larger budgets and investments.
Anheser-Busch InBev: Budweiser, Sella Artois, Corona, and more...
One such sustainable champion providing inspiration to others is Anheser-Busch InBev, brand owner of beers such as Budweiser, Sella Artois, Corona, and more. Recently, they announced plans to be fully powered by renewable energy by 2025. Meanwhile, they are targeting a reduction in their carbon footprint of 30%. This isn’t just a publicity stunt, they are already making good on their promise. American readers may be familiar with this, but a recent Superbowl ad showed that Budweiser is now brewed with 100% renewable energy.
Who knew, you can now get alcohol from Amazon delivered to your door…
Carlsburg are another big name trying to inspire a sustainable revolution. The Danish beer company has transitioned away from plastic rings to a new innovation called ‘snap packs’, sticking cans together with ‘innovative glue technology’. It is estimated that this will save 1,200 tonnes of plastic annually and use 76% less plastic in its packaging. It also says it is happy to share this tech with others.
Seven Bro7hers Brewery & Kelloggs
Needless to say, micro-brewers are also setting new sustainable trends. One niche sustainable alternative is to use food waste, fermenting what would otherwise be destined to landfill. Kelloggs have been giving “rejected” corn flakes to Seven Bro7hers Brewery, a local brewery in Manchester, in order to produce a sustainable beer. The “Throw Away IPA,” as reported by The Telegraph gets about 30 percent of the grain content from the “rejected” flakes.
Similarly UK beer maker “Toast Ale” makes their own beer from the rejected crusts and would-be thrown out beer from local bakeries.
The Fourpure Brewing Company are another eco alcohol brand with environmentalism at its core. They were the first London brewery to replace glass bottles across their entire range with more recyclable metal cans. Since its launch in 2013, it has halved its water usage per unit of beer, sends spent grain to an urban farm, empty cans are transported and delivered in reusable packaging (if you work in production you know how rare this is), and all products and food waste are fully recycled.
Yet our favourite innovation in the sustainable beer space is Saltwater Brewery. Saltwater Brewery worked with New York advertising agency We Believers to replace its plastic rings with bio-based packaging made from edible wheat and barley. Instead of killing marine life, this natural by-product of the beer making process can actually be used to feed fish. It is the first 100% biodegradable, compostable and edible packaging on the market.
Unfortunately we can’t cover all the brands now producing sustainable alcohol, but there are many out there. As with all our recommendations, we advise doing your research. Give a brand a quick Google and look for clear signs of a sustainable mission. Often there will be awards, labels and certifications proving that sustainability is more than just skin deep.
Sustainable alcohol brands - Wine
All over the world, winemakers are adapting to introduce more sustainable practices. A good example of this is in Bordeaux, France, where bats have been introduced as a natural way to fight against grape tortix, a moth that promotes the development of rot in grape berries, rather than using pesticides.
Other developments have also started to be introduced by wine makers. Tuscan producers, Castello Banfi use practices in their vineyards that helps protect the natural ecosystem. They have also lowered their impact by introducing a lightweight bottles, saving 6,340 tonnes of raw materials and 26,416,666 KWh of energy.
Again, there are a number of brands that could be mentioned in this list of sustainable wine producers, but it’s always useful to take things back to basics.
Organic wines
Start with organic, which means that the grapes are grown without harmful pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and chemical fertilizers. No artificial preservatives are also added to this process, making it not only better for the environment but also healthier for us to drink. How to find these sustainable wine brands, simply look for organic signs on the bottle.
Biodynamic wines
Next comes biodynamic labels, which extends the organic ethos to the entire ecosystem around the vineyard. It includes sustainable methods of treating the soil and a general maintenance of the land.
Our advice when looking to drink sustainable alcohol
Where possible, buy locally. Transportation is often one of the biggest causes of pollution, but can easily be avoided. Support your local breweries or distilleries.
Make sure you recycle and reuse packaging as much as possible. Aluminium cans are 100% recyclable and one of the few things that can be recycled in the US or EU (unlike plastic, which likely will end up in landfills even if you think it is heading to be recycled).
Most festivals ban glass on site for obvious safety reasons, so if you are trying to avoid plastic, that leaves just cans.
Environmental facts about alcohol
As a small bonus, we have included some facts about alcohol. Some encouragement perhaps to go green this summer...
- It takes around 298 litres of water to make just one litre of beer.
- The carbon footprint of an average bottle of wine is around 1,200g - the equivalent to driving 3 miles in a small car.
- A study by the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) showed a single 750ml bottle of liquor produces over six pounds of CO2. This is the equivalent of six giant exercise balls full of carbon dioxide for every bottle of booze you drink.
- More than 80 different chemicals can be found in mass produced wines, perhaps a small incentive to buy organic wines from now on…
- The reduction of chemicals and sulphites in organic wine helps reduce the morning after headache for many drinkers.
- 50 to 70 per centof seabirds and up to 80 per cent of sea turtles in any given population are known to have digested debris like plastic.
- Americans drink around 6 billion gallons of beer each year, a full 50% of which is sold in cans. That’s a lot of plastic six-pack rings.
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