It is a talking point here at the distillery and our busy team is growing more knowledgeable and aware when valuing our social and environmental impact, as we prioritise meaningful actions in this crucial area; changing the narrative to meet rising sustainability challenges.Our distillery sits on nature’s doorstep, on the ridge of the Chiltern Hills in the picturesque village of Penn, reminding us daily with just a small piece of what we are protecting for ourselves and future generations. Reducing and minimising any negative impact arising from our operations is now vital, and committing to making a neutral, if not positive, impact on the environment.
What seemed a tall order we are now embracing as our new normal and welcoming the positive changes that we can see in and around the distillery. Understandably, consumers are becoming increasingly mindful, seeing beyond their transactional interactions with businesses, so it’s an important time for us to react and adapt, whilst navigating the journey towards net zero. And as a small, agile business, we’ve been able to pivot our resources to quickly establish areas we can make changes.
So, with sustainability quickly becoming the new business reality, we will be able to grow with our new practices in place, measure and track their impact and continue to develop further strategies. It’s not all or nothing, it’s about many small considerations; rethinking our processes, reconsidering our connections, revisiting areas of the business where we can transition to make a difference, and reimagining how the future will be.
We hope you enjoy reading further about just a few of our commitments…
WHAT WE ARE DOING
• SUSTAINABLE PROCESSES - we opted for cold distillation from the start. Running at around room temperature we use under 10% of the energy needed to run a traditional copper still. Not only do we capture the most natural and delicate flavours in each botanical, but we are also using the most energy-efficient way to produce our spirits.
• QUALITY SPIRITS IN LIGHTER BOTTLES - in 2022 we not only lightweighted our gin bottles by over 22 % (each bottle being 170g lighter), meaning our overall emissions across the supply chain are reduced but added recyclable bottle caps with recycled paper tamper seals and biodegradable adhesive. The new bottles are being rolled out across our range of gins.
• GREENER DELIVERY - if you are lucky enough to be within 25 miles of our distillery, we offer a local delivery service that not only maps out the most efficient route to minimise emissions but also enables us to use little to no packaging - helping to protect the environment whilst saving you money.
NEW TO 2023
• REFILL STATION COMING SOON - to reduce landfill whilst encouraging circularity, our bottles can soon be refilled with four of our spirits at our distillery shop. Enabling you to reuse your ‘parent’ bottle and keeping existing materials in use not only will save you money but is far less impactful on the environment.
• NEW PACKAGING - if you have your spirits delivered, you may have noticed we have changed our protective packaging to 100% biodegradable bottle bags and unprinted shipping boxes, which can easily be put to another use; another step to lessen our footprint.
• GRAIN TO GLASS - we are aiming to be the first single estate distillery in the area that follows a grain-to-glass method when producing our spirits, using locally farmed ingredients, and bottling onsite.
Our new sustainability page is now live – available to view here on our website - where we can keep you in the know as we continue to commit in this area.
Quite rightly, sustainability is dominating conversations and driving consumer decisions, so until next time, we hope you continue to keep your glasses full, supporting us and all our changes, on our path to a net zero future.
