12 minute read
SUSTAINABILITY: A GREENER DROP
A greener drop
With more and more people making eco-friendly purchases, Caoimhe Hanrahan-Lawrence investigates what sustainability looks like in the drinks industry.
Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important factor in customers’ buying decisions. With rising costs of living, customers are going to be more discerning about their purchases, but IWSR data indicates that consumers are willing to pay more for a sustainable product, especially in the 18 to 35 age demographic.
According to CGA by NIQ’s April Consumer Pulse Report 40 per cent of consumers choose their drinks based on the brand’s sustainability. Environmentally conscious drinkers prioritise brands that are locally sourced and produced, reduce their waste, or use recycled and eco-friendly packaging.
Agricultural innovation
As the wine industry is also an agricultural one, caring for the environment is crucial in ensuring the industry’s longevity. Kim Chalmers of Chalmers Wines thinks that environmentally conscious practices are a natural choice for winegrowers.
“Maybe I’m biased, but I think farmers in general are pretty in tune with the land. I think doing the right thing environmentally comes in second nature to most producers in terms of the farming side of things, but I think wineries have been sharpening up their pencil a lot lately. It’s great to see but we’ve still got lots to do,” she commented.
Brett McClen, Brown Family Wine Group’s Chief Viticulturalist, points out that this is especially true for family wineries.
“Brown Family Wine group is the fourth, coming into fifth generation. It’s obviously a multi-generational family business so they don’t have any interest in degrading the very resources which we own but also making sure that what we do is repeatable for the long term,” he said.
A key measure of environmental sustainability is the Sustainable Winegrowing Australia (SWA) certification. As part of the certification process, Brown Family Wine Group had to investigate the operations of its vineyards, with a particular focus on reducing usage of fuel and pesticides. Luckily, this can have some economic benefits as well, with these savings potentially passing onto the consumer.
“If you run a Venn diagram over operational efficiency as well as environmental impact, there can be quite a happy coexistence where you’re hopefully watching some of the economic as well as environmental outcomes. Efficient use of electricity and fuel helps with costs but also, you want to minimise it from an environmental perspective,” McClen explained.
An area of sustainability that Chalmers Wines focuses on is low-irrigation grape growing, which Chalmers believes creates a uniquely Australian wine.
“Working in an environment that’s harsh and being able to find ways to use less water and putting less stress on natural resources has always been critical for us when making quality wine in a warmer climate,” she said.
Winegrowers are also working to avoid creating monocultures by dedicating sections of the vineyards to diverse and native plantings. This is the next step for Natasha Killeen of Stanton & Killeen.
“Our big focus for the next 12 months is to achieve best practice in the vineyard regarding soil health, water efficiency and biodiversity; we’ll be doing multispecies cover cropping, under vine straw mulching, soil water retention trials and planting native insectariums to improve numbers of beneficial insect species,” Killeen described.
For Killeen, the tide is turning when it comes to sustainability in the industry.
“When I attended the tri-annual Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference (AWITC) in June 2022, the message of the event was loud and clear: get on the bus now as sustainability is no longer optional. The urgent imperative of the wine industry needing to make individual and collective change was echoed throughout the week,” she noted.
Brewing for the better
For brewers, the production of CO2 is a major concern when it comes to environmental sustainability. According to research provided by Young Henry’s, the CO2 produced by the fermentation of a single six-pack of beer would take a tree two full days to absorb.
At Young Henry’s Newtown brewery and distillery, this is being combatted by algae bioreactors, which have been developed alongside the University of Technology Sydney Climate Change Cluster (UTS C3). Algae creates half of the world’s oxygen, and the 400-litre bioreactor in the Young Henry’s brewery produces as much oxygen as one hectare of Australian forest.
Richard Adamson, Young Henry’s Head Brewer, has been amazed by the project.
“The more that [UTS C3] described how they go about managing algae and what it can do, the more it sounded really similar to the way that we as growers manage yeast. It’s a living thing that you have to be a steward of, essentially, and that’s what we do as brewers. We just give the best environment for the yeast to do its job. But algae does the opposite to yeast. It takes in CO2 and produces oxygen with sunlight. Yeast produces CO2. It just struck me that if we can have these two living things working in concert with each other, you could potentially find a balance,” Adamson described.
Young Henry’s has also implemented a carbon capture system to measure exactly how much carbon dioxide is being reduced by the bioreactor.
Canberra-based Capital Brewing is the first brewery to achieve carbon neutral certification under the government’s climate active program and is currently working on CO2 recycling between brewing tanks. However, this increases the risk of contamination and so Capital has had to increase microbiology testing, using PCR tests similar to those used to test for COVID-19.
“That way, we can find out early if we’ve got a beer spoiling organism, which usually comes in the form of a wild yeast that’s entered into our brewery, and we can take action on that early. That’s enabled us to be able to confidently reuse CO2 between tanks, which has seen a big reduction in our CO2 usage,” explained Laurence Kain, Capital Brewing Managing Director.
The two breweries are also repurposing waste produced during the brewing process. Young Henry’s is selling off spent grain for cattle feed, and Capital Brewing is providing it to a local organic compost farm.
“We saw that we had a lot of yeast and a lot of hop matter that was going down the drain and worked out that we could sidestream that liquid waste and provide it to an organic compost farm that operates nearby. They take all of our spent grain and feed it to the organic cattle herd, and they take about seven tonnes a week of our liquid sludge waste from yeast and hops, and they turn that into organic compost,” said Kain.
Additionally, Capital is interested in reducing food wastage, which accounts for approximately six per cent of global greenhouse gas emission. On this front, it has released a range of four beers for GABS 2023 utilising imperfect fruits that would not be sold in-store. Capital also repurposes food waste from the taproom via Goterra, who feed it to black soldier fly larvae.
Furthermore, with the help of a federal grant, Capital Brewing was able to upgrade the refrigeration system in the brewery.
“The water-cooled refrigeration system was specifically designed by refrigeration engineers for our climate here in Canberra, rather than just using a traditional off the shelf air cooled system, which doesn’t operate very efficiently when it’s hot. In Canberra, we get a lot of minus temperatures, and we get a lot of really hot summer days. This plant was designed specifically to operate efficiently in our climate, so we’ve seen a big uplift in refrigeration capacity, but a reduction in overall energy consumption,” Kain explained.
Eco enGINeering
While spirits can be produced on a much smaller scale than beer or wine, Four Pillars Co-founder and Head Distiller Cameron Mackenzie explained that sustainability is still an important consideration.
“The distilling business is one that uses a lot of energy, glass, and waste, we recognise that. That is why it’s so important that retailers choose drinks brands that really put sustainability into action,” said Mackenzie.
Several gin distillers are focusing on botanicals in their sustainability journeys. Four Pillars first began turning spent oranges from the Rare Dry Gin into the Made From Gin Orange Marmalade, and now uses its spent botanicals as mulch. Husk Distillery also reuses its botanicals in the kitchen for its on-site restaurant or uses the botanicals as mulch.
Bombay Sapphire is focusing on botanicals before they enter the gin and has been recognised at the world’s first premium gin brand using 100 per cent sustainablysourced botanicals. This is a great source of pride for Corina Retter, Bombay Sapphire’s Australian Brand Ambassador.
“It’s our responsibility to care about the suppliers and farmers of our botanicals by looking after their wellbeing, supporting their development, and investing in sustainable farming practices to ensure the longevity of the environment and their livelihoods well into the future,” Retter explained.
Another important area of focus is sustainability within a distillery itself. When Four Pillars expanded its Healesville distillery in 2021, it was a prime opportunity to improve sustainability initiatives onsite and has now become the first gin distillery in Australia to achieve carbon neutral status for gins bottled on site.
“Very early on in the Four Pillars journey we became aware of just how energy-intensive making gin is. From the very first day we distilled gin we have tried to recycle, re-use and replenish our environment and give back to the community. We cannot give more to the community than assure them that our gins tread carefully on our planet, especially in this time of climate crisis,” Mackenzie commented.
Likewise, the Bombay Sapphire distillery in Laverstoke, England opened in 2014 and now produces zero landfill. As part of the wider Bacardi company vision, Bombay Sapphire has committed be being plastic free by 2030, and by 2025 Bacardi aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent and cut water consumption by 25 per cent.
In Northern NSW, Husk Distillery is also making strides in terms of environmental sustainability. Though sustainability is not a key part of Husk’s messaging, it does have a farm-to-bottle ethos. For Paul Messenger, Husk Distillery Founder and CEO, environmental sustainability is important in caring for the land that gives Husk Distillery its identity.
“For us, sustainability is not a marketing tool, it’s just a part of our story about how we fit in and connect with our place. What’s really important to me is our provenance – the place and people of the Caldera Coast,” he described.
The sugar cane which is used for Husk Distillery rum is grown on the property with minimal intervention farming practices, meaning that no harsh chemicals are used during the growing process. The cane is harvested green, and the tops and unused parts are returned to the soil, which creates a thick blanket that weed growth, enhances soil biota and stores carbon. The cane is then milled to extract the juice, and waste fibre is saved for mulch, turned into compost, or sold for use as a dietary fibre supplement. The spirit is then extracted from the fermented juice, or wash, and spent wash is fed through a system of cooling tanks into a series of large cattle troughs.
“All of this takes place on our 60-hectare property situated across the river from Tumbulgum in the Caldera Coast of far northern NSW. Of that total, 12-hectares of original, uncleared lowland rainforest is reserved for native forest regeneration work. This is an important connection to the original vegetation of the valley and an important store of native flora,” Messenger explained.
The trend towards sustainable drinks seems to be here to stay, and retailers will have to keep abreast of the innovations and changes brands are making. Killeen emphasised the importance of understanding the practices of sustainable brands.
Understanding sustainability certifications
Though customers are seeking out sustainable drinks, they are also wary of false claims. The producers interviewed by National Liquor News emphasised the importance of certifications, as they assure customers that the brand takes sustainability seriously.
A major certification in the world of Australian wine is the Sustainable Winegrowing Australia (SWA) certification. Member wineries must submit evidence of their sustainable practices and undergo reaccreditation every three years.
“I’m really proud of becoming certified through Sustainable Winegrowing Australia in 2022. There was a lot of work involved getting our practices and systems up to a standard that would pass a rigorous audit. Getting the team on the journey was vital for success, especially because to stay certified, we need to pass the audit every three years. Maintaining best practice doesn’t stop once we pass the audit; it’s about remaining consistent and honest,” Killeen said.
B Corp certification is also prominent and covers multiple industries beyond the drinks world. After initial accreditation, B Corp certified businesses must prove improvement every three years to remain certified.
“It’s somewhat of a recognition but it’s really about joining a movement of industry and business that want to achieve high standards of social and environmental impact,” Adamson commented.
