Scotch Whisky Industry Criticized For Not Having Enough ëGreení Bottle

Some renewable and recycling targets seen as "unnecessarily vague"

By Steven Vass

THE SCOTTISH whisky industry will this week impose environmental targets on itself in an effort to improve its green credentials, but campaigners have criticized it for not going far enough.

The 11 targets to be set by industry body the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) include obtaining 20% of distillation boiler fuels, by far the biggest energy cost, from renewable sources by 2020, and 80% by 2050. Other targets for 2020 include reducing packaging by 10% and making 40% of it recycled, and sending no packaging waste to landfill.M.

The SWA also intends to ensure that all casks are made from sustainable oak, and will set out more general aims such as managing water usage, continuing to make the industry more energy efficient and encouraging distributors and other companies in the supply chain to adopt higher environmental standards.

Julie Hesketh-Laird, SWA director of operational and technical affairs, called the targets a "step change" for the industry. She said that it already had a good environmental record, having cut energy use per whisky liter by 14% in 10 years, for example. However, she said the industry intended to go further to help the Scottish government achieve its own aim of making all energy 20% renewable by 2020.

She said: "Because the industry is so closely tied to using cereals and water and manufacturing in Scotland, its environmental credentials are very much built in. But people don't just want us to comply. They want us to be exemplary." Patrick Harvie, joint convener of the Scottish Green Party, welcomed the moves but said that they could have been "more ambitious" and were in some cases "unnecessarily vague". He said: "For example, the industry could move relatively easily to 100% recycled glass and cardboard for packaging, perhaps even by 2020, rather than merely aiming for a 40% target.

"With good use of local biomass and other renewables, we believe they could also replace at least 50% of their current fuel usage by 2020.

"On water usage, energy efficiency and shifting to sustainably-sourced oak casks, it would be a start just to set some practical targets, rather than the current vague aspirations."

Julie Hesketh-Laird said that targets such as 20% renewable fuel usage and 40% recycled packaging were intended to be "deliverable but stretching".

She said that some targets, such as those for water, were vague because the industry already had a good record in them but wanted to acknowledge their importance.

In response to concerns that the environmental records of other companies in the supply chain would be difficult to police, SWA government and public affairs director Campbell Adams said that the industry's Scottish manufacturing base meant that it was much more tied to working with local partners than other sectors such as food and clothing production.