Irish Distillers and the SDGs

Irish Distillers recently hosted BITCI’s Sustainable Development Goals Workshop: ‘Integrating the SDGs into your business strategy’. It was a great opportunity to hear about how Irish Distillers have incorporated the SDGs into their CSR activities and how they have used the goals as a tool to communicate internally about sustainability and responsibility.

Pernod Ricard, the parent company of Irish Distillers, recently launched its 2030 Sustainability & Responsibility roadmap. This roadmap sets out 8 ambitious and concrete targets, each supporting 2 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The group is taking bold next steps in addressing both environmental topics and societal issues, in particular accelerating the fight against alcohol misuse.

Extensive research and stakeholder engagement informed the development of the roadmap. The 8 new sustainability and responsibility commitments are built on four key areas: nurturing terroir, valuing people, circular making and responsible hosting. The four pillars seek to address material issues such as climate change, human rights and waste. Each pillar includes targets with KPIs and measurements to ensure progress is monitored towards 2030.

The main elements of the 2030 roadmap are as follows:

Nurturing Terroir
This area of commitment focuses on nurturing every terroir and its biodiversity, responding to the challenges of climate change to ensure quality ingredients now and for generations to come.

• SDG Alignment: Contributing to the SDG 13: Climate Change and SDG 15: Life on Land, this pillar focuses on biodiversity along with addressing the impact of agricultural footprint

Valuing People
This commitment is related to increasing diversity and fairness for all employees and empowering people across the supply chain.

• The two key commitments made will focus on equality, future leadership and shared knowledge and learning
• SDG Alignment: Contributing to the SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and SDG 5: Gender Equality, this pillar is all about respect, increasing employee attraction, lowering supply chain risks and meeting rising consumer expectations around transparency.

Circular Making
These commitments focus on minimising waste at every step by re-imagining, producing and distributing products in ways that optimise and help preserve natural resources.

• The two key commitments made will focus on packaging and waste & water balance and carbon-footprint
• SDG Alignment: Contributing to SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production and SDG 14: Life Below Water. Moving towards more circular models throughout the business, with a view to minimizing carbon footprint and preserving water.

Responsible Hosting

Wine & Spirits bring people together and serve a valuable role in society. Irish Distillers is committed to fighting alcohol misuse in society by taking action on harmful drinking and engaging with its stakeholders for real change.

• The two key commitments made under this pillar will focus on fighting alcohol misuse.
• SDG Alignment: SDG 3 Health and Wellbeing and to prevent and reduce harmful use of alcohol. We know that addressing alcohol abuse cannot be done alone, and partnerships with other industry members, governments and local communities are necessary for success

Find out more about Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard sustainable business practices.

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