2021: The Year of Sustainable Spirits

2021 is going to be a big year for sustainability with the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26 taking place in Glasgow this November. This is already having an impact across business and in the global spirits industry in particular. The fact that world leaders are meeting in the land of whisky and gin, at the end of this year, will ensure the drinks industry is very much focused on sustainability, net zero and the climate emergency.

At the Arbikie Distillery, we take our responsibilities as both farmers and distillers very seriously and our vision when we launched was to be one of the world's most sustainable distilleries. With our field-to-bottle ethos, growing, distilling, maturing & bottling our family of luxury spirits at the Arbike Farm Distillery, we are very much on that journey.

We reached a key milestone when we launched the world's first climate-positive gin, Nàdar in early 2020 to deserved acclaim for our Master Distiller, Kirsty Black who researched and ultimately distilled Nàdar Gin as part of her PHD. A five years project with academic partners, the James Hutton Institute and Abertay University. As with all of our family of spirits, Nàdar is grown, distilled and bottled at the Arbikie Farm Distillery. Nàdar is distilled using the Daytona variety of peas and removes 1.5kg of carbon from the atmosphere per 70cl bottle and hence climate-positive. We were very lucky to have a range of transnational academic partners on the project, with the carbon assessments for Nàdar being carried out by Bangor University and Trinity College Dublin.

The rise of sustainable spirits was recently most recognised when the influential 'Spirits Business' magazine rated our Nàdar Gin launch as No.2 in all the global 2020 spirits product launches. The Hospitality trade and discerning consumers are increasingly demanding sustainable spirits and want to know much more information on what their spirits are distilled from, how they are distilled and what impact this process has on the environment before they buy. Arbikie was also recognised for its sustainable approach winning the 'Excellence in Sustainability' Award in late 2020 at the Scottish Whisky Awards against very tough opposition, including drinks giant, Diageo.

Elsewhere, the influential SWA (Scottish Whisky Association) has just published their updated Sustainability Strategy. There are four main themes: tackling climate change, using water responsibly, moving to a circular economy, and caring for the land. Thus moving sustainability and climate change to the very top of the agenda across all the global drinks giants, including Diageo & Pernod Ricard. In the political arena, the recent change in US Government leadership has also put the environment and climate change back at the top of the political agenda, with the experienced John Kerry leading the US into COP26.

Therefore, 2021 is hopefully the year of positive change as world leaders address the climate emergency and the need for radical change to preserve our living world.

More info on Nàdar Gin at www.arbikie.com/nadar-gin

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