Social
IARD and its member companies announced an arrangement with the world’s leading digital platform providers to further strengthen standards of responsibility for beverage alcohol advertising on the latter’s channels worldwide. The tie-up will help ensure that online advertising is directed only at LDA consumers who wish to engage with drinks brands. IARD has been working with digital companies since 2018 to enhance responsibility standards for alcohol-related marketing online in support of the United Nation’s goals to reduce harmful drinking.
In Cambodia, a raft of alcohol producers and trade associations launched the ‘Self-Regulatory Code for Responsible Alcohol Marketing & Communication’ in partnership with the government. A coalition of Carlsberg and Heineken with the Wine Spirits & Beer Importer & Distributors Association and the Asia Pacific International Spirits & Wines Alliance has established guidelines within the code for responsible marketing and communications, supported by domestic and international stakeholders throughout the value chain. The code also aligns with the industry’s willingness to establish the country’s first legal purchasing age for alcohol. WSBIDA and Pernod Ricard are collaborating with the Ministry of Commerce to secure an age limit.
Heineken’s Red Stripe brand hosted the latest instalment of its ‘Responsibility Now!’ town hall series in Jamaica, exploring responsible consumption from a variety of perspectives. The latest session examined the role of the media in promoting responsible drinking, as participants discussed how traditional and social media can promote moderation to the public. Red Stripe’s ‘Low, Slow, No’ campaign in the country emphasises the importance of moderate drinking by promoting no- & low-alcohol alternatives and reinforcing that alcohol is not appropriate for underage youth, drivers and pregnant women.
In Australia, DrinkWise commenced a responsibility activation targeting sports fans during the country’s annual ‘State of Origin’ rugby series. ‘Always respect, always DrinkWise’ has been rolled out in partnership with leading government and officer stakeholders and highlights the importance of fans behaving appropriately and looking after each other whether at home or in a bar or pub.
Environment
Anheuser-Busch InBev celebrated Budweiser China’s achievement of reducing carbon emissions across its entire value chain by 25%, two years ahead of the original target date. The division is now working with its Scope 3 suppliers to build a low-carbon value chain, and aims to have completed carbon baseline verification and a carbon-neutrality roadmap for 99% of its packaging suppliers by the end of this year. The project will later expand from China to more of the group’s markets in Asia Pacific.
AB InBev’s OB Beer unit in South Korea launched a programme at the Gangnam Green Expo to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. While highlighting its ongoing upcycling and reforestation projects, OB is encouraging its staff to adopt everyday carbon-reduction activities as the brewer moves towards its first-stage target of a 25% reduction in emissions by 2025.
In Romania, Asahi’s Ursus Breweries is working in partnership with the Conservation Carpathia NGO to safeguard the natural habitat of the brown bear, which has been the brewery’s symbol for 140 years. Ursus has donated 1% of its sales to the NGO through its ‘Listen to your inner bear and do good’ campaign, raising around EUR260,000 (US$278,000) for conservation efforts in the country’s Făgăraș mountains.
Bacardi won a Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) award in the UK for its conservation work on the River Test, which runs through the Bombay Sapphire gin distillery site. The project was one of the top-scoring initiatives worldwide at the 2024 WHC Conservation Conference and comes after the facility became the first UK distillery to be awarded WHC Silver Certification last year.
In Sweden, Carlsberg is more than trebling the size of its electric delivery vehicle fleet through a tie-up with sustainable freight providers Einride. The new vehicles will be active from the beginning of 2025 and will save 12,300 tons of CO2 emissions over the following five years while covering around 7.6m kilometres.
Diageo kicked off a trial for sustainable paper bottles, distributing 2,000 miniature 8cl bottles of Baileys at the Time Out Festival in Barcelona. The pilot was designed to evaluate how well the bottles, which are made of 90% paper, would travel from Ireland to Spain, as well as to gauge consumer reaction. The new bottles can be recycled in standard waste paper streams without the need to separate the plastic liner inside the bottle when recycling.
In France, Heineken hit a regenerative agriculture milestone after 200 farmers participated in the first harvest of barley from its large-scale regenerative agriculture project. The brewer’s division in the country worked with food processing cooperative VIVESCIA on the introduction of science-based changes to agricultural processes that would deliver co-benefits in soil health, biodiversity, water stewardship, climate impact and climate resilience. Heineken hopes to expand the programme to 500 farmers in 2025, and then to 1,000 the following year.
Staying in France, and Moët Hennessy unveiled plans to launch a plastic-free foil on bottles of its Moët & Chandon champagne brand in October. Designed with sustainable packaging supplier Amcor Capsules, the ‘Essentielle’ foil will form part of the brand’s move towards more sustainable packaging, containing 60% recycled aluminium and boasting a carbon footprint that is 31% lower than standard polylaminate foils.
Pernod Ricard confirmed a five-year agreement with sustainable packaging provider Ecospirits that will see the former’s spirits brands distributed to on-premise outlets worldwide in Ecospirits’ circular packaging technology. The partnership, which is the result of a pilot project in Singapore two years ago, feeds into Pernod Ricard’s 2030 sustainability and responsibility roadmap, ‘Good Times from a Good Place’.
Finally, Suntory Holdings announced Australia‘s largest single FMCG investment in around a decade with the construction of a AUD400m (US$265.6m) carbon-neutral production facility for Suntory Oceania in Queensland. Work has commenced on the installation of 7,000 solar panels, with biomass and green energy also set to power the site.
Governance
In Japan, Kirin partnered with the Japan Football Association (JFA) for the latest ‘JFA-Kirin Big Smile Field’ joint project in Wajima, to support the area’s recovery from the Noto Peninsula earthquake earlier this year. The project utilises walking football to enable people in the affected area to participate regardless of gender, age, football experience or disability. Kirin and the JFA first partnered on social recovery through football projects in schools in 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
