Not-for-profit organisation the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking rounds up the latest ESG-related efforts from its brand-owner members. Here’s what they were up to in April.
Social
Anheuser-Busch InBev is launching the world’s largest voluntary guidance labelling initiative ever undertaken by an alcohol brand owner. The group’s latest ‘Smart Drinking’ programme will globally promote responsible drinking with guidance labels on all its beer bottles and cans, including the 26 countries where there is no legal mandate for label warnings. Meanwhile. in Brazil, AB InBev’s Ambev division is trialling a new artificial intelligence (AI) app, which estimates how many drinks a user has consumed based on their speech and offers appropriate responsible drinking advice.
In New Zealand, Kirin’s Lion NZ recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of its ‘Alcohol&Me’ programme, which has given responsible drinking advice to more than 400,000 consumers since its inception. The initiative draws on expert information from around the world, which is regularly reviewed by medical professionals, to provide consumers with practical information about alcohol.
In Asia, Pernod Ricard launched its latest ‘Autosobriety’ activations in Cambodia and China, further extending the global drink-driving prevention programme the company developed with the United Nations Institute for Training & Research.
Pernod Ricard also announced the latest in a series of digital responsible drinking campaigns in South Korea that began in 2020. The ‘Drink More Water’ campaign will advise young consumers to alternate their drinks with water this summer and will provide general responsible drinking guidelines.
Environmental
In Mexico, Heineken and AB InBev’s Modelo unit have been working for around a decade to reduce water usage. Last month, they announced steps to go further, as part of Cerveceros de México’s water roadmap for 2030. Following serious droughts in 2022, the brewers are working to increase the recycling and reuse of water while recharging the country’s aquifers.
In the US, Brown-Forman and Beam Suntory are working as part of the ‘White Oak Initiative’ [WOI] to secure the future of the country’s oak forests as well as the white oak species. The WOI is a coalition of researchers, conservationists, foresters and policymakers that is lobbying for legislative support of efforts to preserve the viability of the white oak. Brown-Forman employees recently completed a five-acre planting of white oak seedlings in Louisville, Kentucky.
In Australia, the recycling not-for-profit VicReturn has been appointed to coordinate Victoria’s new container deposit scheme. VicReturn is operated by Asahi, The Coca-Cola Co and Kirin’s Lion subsidiary.
Beam Suntory is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its ‘Save the Birds’ campaign in Japan, which led to the founding of the ‘Suntory Fund for Bird Conservation’ in 1989. The fund has since distributed around JPY600m [US$4.4m] in conservation and restoration grants to almost 500 organisations, and in fiscal 2023 will grant JPY40m to 22 projects.
Coca-Cola has published its ‘2022 Business & Sustainability Report’, detailing the ongoing work on water stewardship, circular packaging, sustainable agriculture and an interconnected approach to sustainability that supports its science-based targets on greenhouse gas reduction and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
In Mexico, Diageo has started to use drones on its agave farms in Jalisco following a successful pilot last year. The drones enable more efficient farming practices, dispensing a mixture of fertiliser and pesticide to individual plants as needed, and optimising water use.
The group also activated one of the largest private solar panel arrays in Scotland at its Leven distillery in Fife, which will deliver up to 60% of the plant’s power needs during summertime, reducing carbon emissions by 830 tonnes a year. This accompanies a rainwater harvesting development that will provide the distillery with up to 7m litres of water a year.
Pernod Ricard has signed its first sustainability-linked loan for EUR2.1bn [US$2.3bn], which is linked to environmental commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption at its production sites. The group has also announced investments in existing and new distilleries, in line with its 2030 sustainability targets.
Governance
Brand owners including Bacardi, Beam Suntory, Brown-Forman, Diageo, William Grant & Sons, Moët Hennessy, and Pernod Ricard are supporting a new collection of free photos to address the media’s “outdated stereotypes” of “whisky being a drink only enjoyed by men”. The globally-available stock image library ‘Modern Face of Whisky’ will improve the diversity of whisky drinkers portrayed in the media by offering photos of women and people of all genders, races and ages consuming whisky.
In Spain, Bacardi is expanding its ‘Shake Your Future’ initiative to Madrid. The programme offers young, unemployed adults the opportunity to train as professional mixologists. The ten-week diploma course will give them the skills and experience they need to start a new hospitality career: all of the initiative’s initial 2022 intake are now pursuing careers in the hospitality sector.
Brown-Forman is piloting its ‘Upstander Intervention’ programme in Australia as part of its global ‘Pause’ campaign, which teaches employees what to do when faced with uncomfortable situations around alcohol in public venues. Employees receive training on identifying concerning behaviour, safe interventions and maximising people’s safety. The company was also recognised by Ethisphere as one of the ‘World’s Most Ethical Companies’ for the second consecutive year.
And, in the US, Molson Coors Beverage Co’s brewery in Trenton, Ohio produced 400,000 cans of drinking water ready to distribute to emergency and disaster sites across the country. Since 2017, Molson Coors has donated 2m cans of water to help those experiencing “everything from tornadoes and hurricanes to wildfires and winter storms.”
Head here for more details on the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking.
