Clonakilty Distillery founder Michael Scully
Which recent ESG initiative or improvement at Clonakilty are you most proud of?
After 12 months of preparation, Clonakilty received B Corp certification in May 2025, becoming the first whisk(e)y distillery in the EU to receive this qualification.
At Clonakilty, we recognise that B Corp certification is the gold standard, and the changes and initiatives we implemented to achieve this standard enabled us to put truly lasting and robust structures in place.
What’s the biggest ESG challenge facing the drinks industry today?
There’s a compliance cost to many of these initiatives. As a small example, we only purchase more expensive renewable electricity as part of our sustainability commitment. So right now, there’s a constant wrestling match between what’s more cost-effective and what’s the right thing to do.
Long term, there’s only one answer, so despite the financial challenges, we must stay true to our values, including our commitment to customers, staff and community.
What advice would you give to companies looking to strengthen their ESG performance?
Identify and join a certification programme, whichever that may be. Include all staff when it comes to deciding what’s important, and let them lead from the ground up in implementing those initiatives.
How has winning an ESG Award influenced your approach?
Among other sustainability awards, we were fortunate to be awarded a gold medal at the Global Drinks Intel ESG Awards in 2025. Accolades such as this gave us the confidence and grounding to fully commit to our long-term ESG programme.
Copalli Rum CMO Patricia Vasconcelos
Copalli Rum was named Global Drinks Intel’s ‘ESG Spirits Producer of the Year’ in 2025. What recent ESG initiative or improvement are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of how we’ve continued to deepen Copalli’s carbon-negative and circular production model, not as a standalone initiative but as an integrated way of operating. Our approach connects responsible agriculture, renewable energy and waste repurposing into one closed-loop system.
For example, our sugarcane is grown locally and sustainably, and the by-products of rum production are not treated as waste. Instead, they are reintegrated back into the land and the local agricultural cycle. This closed-loop system is a major part of how we reduce environmental impact while also supporting long-term soil health and biodiversity.
Ultimately, we’re demonstrating that a premium spirits brand can be built with world-class quality and world-class responsibility, proving that sustainability can be a core business strategy, not an afterthought.
What one piece of advice would you give companies looking to strengthen their ESG performance?
Strong ESG performance comes from designing sustainability into the supply chain, sourcing practices and community relationships from the very beginning. For Copalli, that means regenerative farming, carbon-negative production and ensuring that local communities benefit directly from the success of the brand.
Consumers and partners are increasingly sophisticated. They can tell the difference between surface-level claims and authentic impact. My advice is simple: focus on substance first, storytelling second.
Has winning a Global Drinks Intel ESG Award impacted your approach?
It’s been incredibly rewarding, not only externally as a way to communicate what we have accomplished, but also internally as a celebration of the processes and commitments we put in place from the very beginning.
Recognition like this is a signal that the industry is paying attention, and that we have an opportunity to lead by example.
Cotswolds Distillery founder & CEO Dan Szor
Which of Cotswolds’ ESG initiatives are you most proud of?
It has to be our on-site wetlands ecological treatment system, which was recognised with the Global Drinks Intel ESG Award for ‘Biodiversity Achievement of the Year’ in 2025. Rather than sending process water off-site, we invested in a natural reed-bed filtration system that treats and returns water to the local ecosystem.
It’s a long-term commitment, not a marketing initiative. As a rural distillery in the Cotswolds, we believe custodianship of our landscape is fundamental. The system reduces our environmental impact while enhancing biodiversity, which makes the award especially meaningful.
What is the biggest ESG challenge that the drinks industry is currently facing?
Moving from incremental improvements to structural change. Energy use, water stewardship and packaging all require serious capital investment. For smaller independent producers, the challenge is balancing sustainability ambition with commercial reality. ESG cannot sit alongside the business – it has to be embedded within it.
What advice would you give to companies looking to strengthen their ESG performance?
Make it strategic, not cosmetic. Start with what is material to your operations and geography, commit for the long term, and measure it properly. Authenticity is critical – consumers and investors can tell the difference.
Has winning an ESG Award influenced your approach?
It has reinforced our belief that doing the right thing commercially and environmentally are not mutually exclusive. Recognition encourages us to be more ambitious and to share what we are learning with the wider industry.
Champagne Telmont CEO Ludovic du Plessis
Champagne Telmont won ‘Green Packaging Initiative of the Year’ at the Global Drinks Intel ESG Awards in 2025 and ‘Sustainable Wine Product’ in 2024. What recent ESG initiative or improvement are you most proud of?
One milestone we are particularly proud of is becoming the first Champagne house to achieve Regenerative Organic Certified [ROC] certification on our organic-certified vineyard last year.
ROC goes beyond organic farming: it requires the complete elimination of synthetic inputs while also promoting soil regeneration, biodiversity and fair conditions for the people who work the land. It reflects the philosophy we have been pursuing for years, that ‘the wine is good if the Earth is beautiful’. Great wine can only come from living soils and a healthy ecosystem.
This certification is an important step in our long-term ambition to convert 100% of our vineyards, and those of our partner growers, to organic and regenerative agriculture by 2031.
What do you feel is the biggest ESG challenge facing the drinks industry today?
The speed of transformation. Climate change is already affecting vineyards around the world – over the last 30 years, the average temperature in the Champagne region has increased by about 1.1°C – and the industry must accelerate the transition to more sustainable agricultural practices while drastically reducing its carbon footprint.
Telmont has the ambition of reaching net zero by 2050, which means reducing our emissions by around 90% across the entire value chain. This requires rethinking everything, from farming methods and packaging to logistics and energy use.
The good news is that innovation is everywhere; the real challenge now is collective action and scaling these solutions across the industry.
What one piece of advice would you give companies looking to strengthen their ESG performance?
If there’s one message we would share, it’s that you can be radical and still grow.
Too often, sustainability is perceived as a constraint, or a cost. Our experience at Telmont shows the opposite: bold decisions – whether removing gift boxes, stopping air freight or investing in organic and regenerative viticulture – can strengthen a brand and resonate deeply with consumers.
When sustainability is authentic and embedded in the core of your strategy, it becomes a driver of trust, differentiation and, ultimately, growth.
How has winning a Global Drinks Intel ESG Award impacted your approach?
These recognitions are incredibly encouraging for our team! They confirm that bold decisions – whether launching a 100% organic cuvée like Réserve de la Terre, awarded Sustainable Wine Product in 2024, or pioneering innovations such as the 800g champagne bottle, which received Green Packaging Initiative of the Year in 2025 – are meaningful achievements.
More than anything, though, awards motivate us to go further and faster. Sustainability is a long journey, and recognition from the industry strengthens our conviction that change is possible when ambition and vision meet action – all in the name of Mother Nature!
Everleaf Drinks founder Paul Mathew
Which recent ESG initiative or improvement at Everleaf are you most proud of?
The biggest impact this year has been our move to a 100% post-consumer recycled glass bottle – a small change with significant benefits, and one we’re building on later this year with a lighter-weight bespoke version.
But I’m most proud of our ‘plant time’ KPIs – the number of hours we can spend in nature with our team, trade and consumers. We’ve done bike rides, walks in parks and botanical gardens, and even wildflower planting – in the rain and mud – with one of our charity partners, Plantlife. That’s the bit that makes me proud – the whole of the Everleaf team getting behind our target of ‘being more plant’!
What’s the biggest ESG challenge facing the drinks industry today?
For smaller businesses like ours, it’s keeping up with all the changing legislation while continuing to do the good things that matter to us as a business. We’re working with a great start-up called Alkatera that aims to have all the information required for reporting against everything, from EPR to our B Corp re-certification, and impact reports in one place, which will help enormously.
What advice would you give to companies looking to strengthen their ESG performance?
Make a start and build from there. Focus on incremental improvements. It can be really intimidating when you start out, but do what you can and keep growing.
Everleaf won Sustainable Spirits Product of the Year at the 2025 Global Drinks Intel ESG Awards. How did winning this award influence your approach?
It made us feel really positive about growing that side of what we do. We were all so proud of winning and really want to build on that together.
Australian Vintage head of safety, wellbeing & environment Amanda Normoyle
Which recent ESG initiative or improvement at Australian Vintage are you most proud of?
The roll-out [in April] of our new 300g lightweight burgundy bottle across the McGuigan Wines range (above). Following the successful introduction of a lightweight bordeaux bottle last year, this innovation will be used across approximately 3.5m bottles annually and is expected to reduce CO₂ emissions from glass production by around 82,000kg each year.
As glass packaging represents a significant component of wine’s carbon footprint, this initiative demonstrates how practical innovation can deliver measurable environmental benefits without compromising quality, while supporting our commitment to reduce emissions and drive more sustainable outcomes across the industry.
What do you believe is the biggest ESG challenge facing the drinks industry today?
The industry’s most significant ESG challenge is adapting to climate change while reducing its own environmental footprint. For wine specifically, this requires balancing vineyard resilience, water security, sustainable packaging and emissions reduction with the need to maintain product quality, profitability and long-term industry competitiveness.
What advice would you give to companies looking to strengthen their ESG performance?
Identify the ESG issues that matter most to your business and stakeholders, set measurable goals, quantify them and embed them into your strategy and operations. Don’t treat ESG as a separate exercise – ESG delivers the greatest value when it becomes part of how the business is run, not just how it reports.
Australian Vintage won in two categories in Global Drinks Intel’s ESG Awards two years ago – the Sustainable Wine Producer of the Year and Diversity/Gender Inclusion Achievement of the Year. How did winning these awards influence your approach?
We saw these as valuable endorsements of the progress we’ve made within the ESG space. They strengthened our focus on embedding ESG into business strategy, setting measurable goals and ensuring we continue to drive meaningful outcomes across our vineyards, operations, supply chain and communities as we strive to create a net-positive impact.
Heaven Hill Brands assistant VP for environment & sustainability Rachel Nally
Which recent ESG initiative or improvement are you most proud of?
Achieving our 2030 water efficiency goal five years ahead of schedule was a significant milestone in our ten-year Environmental Sustainability Strategy. It reflects real, sustained effort across our operations teams; not a one-time project, but years of cross-functional discipline working toward a shared target.
What do you believe is the biggest ESG challenge facing the drinks industry today?
Navigating a landscape where stakeholder expectations, reporting requirements and voluntary frameworks are evolving faster than they’re converging. Companies are being asked for greater transparency and stronger performance at the same time, but the lack of consistency across schemes can pull resources away from the work that creates the most meaningful impact.
Greater alignment across frameworks would help the whole industry move faster, measure more clearly and invest with confidence.
What advice would you give to companies looking to strengthen their ESG performance?
Start with an honest assessment. Be clear-eyed about where you’re performing well, where gaps exist and where the business has the greatest opportunity to improve.
Strong ESG performance is built on good data, internal accountability and the discipline to prioritise real action over ambitious aspiration.
Heaven Hill’s ‘Spirited Neighbor Initiative’ won Social Achievement of the Year at the Global Drinks Intel ESG Awards in 2025. How did winning this award influence your approach?
Awards aren’t why we do this work; our focus is on building a more resilient, responsible business for the long term. That said, external recognition does matter. It validates the effort that often happens quietly behind the scenes and helps reinforce momentum internally.
It’s genuinely encouraging for our teams to know that steady, practical progress is being noticed beyond our own walls.
