Environment: Diageo

Diageo’s grain to glass sustainable plan

Global glass customer Diageo officially launched its 2030: Spirit of Progress action plan last year, with the aim of being more sustainable, championing inclusion and diversity, and promoting positive drinking. George Lewis spoke to Lucy Fishwick* about how the company plans to reach these goals.

Diageo owns some of the most well-known beverage brands in the world, including Guinness, Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker. It has a total of more than 200 brands spanning 180 countries globally.

In November 2020 it launched its 10year action plan called the Society 2030: Spirit of Progress as a way to ‘expand its lens’ to hit targets across the company, including becoming a more sustainable and inclusive organisation .

The plan is split into three main ‘pillars’: Promoting Positive Drinking, Championing Inclusion and Diversity and Grain to Glass Sustainability. Diageo says it wants its consumers to ‘drink better not drink more’.

Lucy Fishwick, Diageo’s Head of Procurement for the company’s Glass to Grain Sustainability, has only taken up this role recently, having previously been the Global Procurement Category Director for Glass and PET. Ms Fishwick has been at the company for nearly eight years, so has seen first-hand the role Diageo is playing to create a more inclusive and sustainable industry.

Ms Fishwick’s role includes making strategic decisions on Diageo’s suppliers around the world. But this role was adapted slightly due to Covid-19 which prevented her from visiting many of

them since starting in the role.

Despite difficult conditions, she has been able to rely on Category Managers from every region who have helped her settle into the role and give her the knowledge she needs to make strategic sourcing decisions.

She said: “It’s been a bit of a challenge. I have only been able to see one supplier due to Covid and only seen one furnace in my life so far (in person) apart from in YouTube videos!

“I’m absolutely desperate to get out

there and see people and the furnaces.”

She understands the importance of Diageo’s 10-year plan for the future of the glass industry.

She explained: “We can’t sit back and wait for consumer’s mind to shift otherwise we will be on the back foot.”

� Diageo owns some of the world’s most famous brands, including Guinness, Smirnoff and Bailey’s

� � Lucy Fishwick has been at Diageo for eight years, and now works on one of the company’s ‘three pillars’ – it’s Glass to Grain Sustainability.

The three pillars

Diageo’s latest plan has meant the company can continue to look at the complete supply chain and be able to take a broader view of what its impact is globally, not just internally.

Ms Fishwick said: “Our 10-year plan is to build a more sustainable world, building on a legacy of our founders to create positive impact in our company, our communities and societies overall.”

Ms Fishwick explained that the company’s ‘grain to glass sustainability’ goal, for which she now works closely on, is ‘all about making sure we are ready for the future’.

“The consumer attitude will shift and we want to win when it does”, she said.

Diageo is committed to working towards a low-carbon future by eventually using 100% renewable energy to achieve

net zero carbon emissions across its direct operations, while also working with its suppliers to reduce indirect carbon emissions by 50% by 2030.

It also wants to use 60% recycled content while also using 30% less water. It is also bidding to have net zero Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions along with halving its scope three emissions by 2030.

Scope 1 emissions covers direct emissions from a company’s owned or controlled sources, while Scope 2 emissions covers indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling consumed by the company.

The Scope 3 emissions include all other indirect discharges that occur in a company’s value chain.

Ms Fishwick hopes that halving Scope 3 emissions can be ‘a good stepping stone to a complete net zero supply chain before 2050’.

She added: “It’s fair to say sustainability is growing and growing but at different rates in different markets, but we will not get to our 2030 targets without collaborating with our suppliers and our peers.”

The second ‘pillar’, ‘championing inclusion and diversity’, involves making Diageo a more inclusive and diverse culture.

It aims to have 45% representation of leaders from ethnically diverse backgrounds by 2030 as well as 50% of

all leaders being women, along with 60% females on the board at Diageo. It will also provide skills and training to over 1.7m people to help create an inclusive hospitality sector.

Ms Fishwick explained that ‘as our consumers are the most inclusive and diverse, how can we expect to be able to interact with them unless we are living and breathing the same values’?

She said that while the aim is to get to 50% of women in leadership by 2030, it hopes to get there much sooner with women currently in those roles at around 39-40% already.

She also explained that the company

� Earlier this year Diageo became the latest company to collaborate with glass manufacturer Encirc and Glass Futures to use biofuel-powered furnaces.

� Diageo’s Spirit of Progress action plan aims to make the company ‘a more sustainable and inclusive company’ by 2030.

is trying to ‘level the playing field’ rather than promote one sex over the other, and this shown by the equal parental leave given to Diageo employees.

The last ‘pillar’ is to promote positive drinking and this includes looking at helping bring the company reach a new audience, while also trying to change the attitudes of up to five million drivers towards drink driving and educating a further 10 million people on the dangers of underage drinking through its awardwinning alcohol education awareness programme, Smashed .

Biofuel trial

In April 2021, Diageo became the latest company, after Heineken and Carlsberg, to collaborate with glass manufacturer Encirc and Glass Futures to use biofuelpowered furnaces, collaborating to reduce the carbon footprint of the bottle-making process by up to 90%.

The trial produced 173,000 of Diageo’s Black & White bottles, which also used 100% recycled glass. This made the batch the most environmentally friendly ever produced for a Scotch whisky brand.

Ms Fishwick said: “To be part of the trial to get to 90% carbon reduction was hugely exciting because it is absolutely aligned with our ambition and long term view.”

John Aird, Senior Packaging Technologist at Diageo said at the time of the trial: “This trial is just a first step in the journey to decarbonise this aspect of our supply chain and we still have a long way to go, but we are delighted with the results of the collaboration and the platform it creates for future innovation.

“We see Glass Futures as a great opportunity to develop new technology and to help deliver net zero glass manufacturing and we are delighted to support them in that mission.”

The future for Diageo

Despite having the majority of its products in glass for more than 250 years, Diageo remains committed to keeping it as its ‘primary format’.

Ms Fishwick lauded its glass bottles as a ‘thing of beauty’ and would like to see the brands remain in glass for the foreseeable future. But she said the whole industry must work hard to be environmentally better and be able to entice future generations to the industry.

She said: “We’ve got to embrace Industry 4.0. Glass is going to have work hard to make sure we bring new talent in and grow for the future.”

She added that it is imperative the industry looks to the future to see the impact of the work being done now.

She explained: “As the next generation comes to the market were going to have a consumer base that has grown up very different to those before, grown up with social media etc., with more knowledge.”

She believes the Western world understands more the need to be more sustainable and that knowledge is increasing every day.

She feels the next generation of consumers are more savvy about the environmental impact on the world.

She hopes that Diageo can play its part in reinforcing the message to be more sustainable and with the Spirit of Progress 2030 action plan available for all to see and be judged on, she believes it can push the message out across its brands globally. �

*Head of Procurement - Glass to Grain Sustainability London, UK https://www.diageo.com/