Our journey to climate positive rum, without the greenwashing
There’s no getting away from the fact that a distillery needs a lot of energy to operate. It’s important to be honest about the impact, the challenges we face and ultimately what we are going to do about it; embracing our responsibility to do the right things, and always act with sustainability in mind.
The key factors we consider at V are:
- How do we ensure our equipment operates as efficiently as possible.
- How do we make sure as much of the energy we do utilise is renewable.
- How do we manage our supply chain (including the supply of our ingredients) to limit emissions.
- How do we package and ship the product in the most sustainable way.
- When we can’t solve or remove the impact on all of these points how do we compensate and lastly.
- How do we be open and honest about what we are doing and the impact we have.
1) How do we ensure our equipment operates as efficiently as possible?
Our distillery was constructed in 2024 using new equipment and new technology. We operate 2 x Holstein stills, 1 is 500L the other is 1500L. The 500L still is heated through an electric jacket, the 1500L is steam heated which currently uses a gas boiler (more around renewable utilities shortly). The rest of our equipment, where energy is needed, is powered through renewable electricity. It’s not just about making the equipment efficient but also the processes surrounding the use of that equipment, as an example – we need water to cool our stills, cooling the stills creates a lot of excess hot water (water that has been heated by the still). We store this hot water and use it in future batches of V rather than dispose of it and have to re-heat water for the next batch.
2) How do we make sure as much of the energy we do utilise is renewable?
The majority of our equipment is powered through electricity, we purchase 100% renewable electricity through Ecotricity. We also have a 40KW solar array being installed at our distillery which shall be in use from October 2024. Our 1500L still, given its size, is steam heated. Unfortunately, efficient electric steam boilers are still in their infancy so ours is gas powered. We use Ecotricity for gas, Ecotricity are pioneers of green gas although a large proportion of the supply remains to be natural gas. The residual carbon emissions from Ecotricity fossil fuel gas are offset by investing in carbon reduction schemes around the world to carbon neutralise all the gas they supply – we then also supplement that with our own initiatives.
3) How do we manage our supply chain (including the supply of our ingredients) to limit emissions?
Where possible we source from local providers for the ingredients and products we utilise to limit the journey distance to V, plus we’re using natural ingredients – no artificial flavours or colourings. Due to the nature of much of what we utilise, the origin is often much further afield so we have to work to mitigate where that’s the case. For example, sugar cane is required to produce molasses which is a core ingredient of rum. Given the climate, the UK is not a producer of sugar cane however sugar cane is imported to produce sugar. That being the case, we source our molasses from UK refined sugar cane (even though the sugar cane itself is grown elsewhere). We continue to experiment with beet molasses from sugar beet (which is grown in the UK) but this is work in progress and isn’t yet used in our commercial products.
4) How do we package and ship the product in the most sustainable way?
Glass bottles are of course commonplace in the spirits industry as a robust and reliable way of packaging and transporting liquid. The problem is the production of glass is a significant emissions producer, the use of a large proportion of recycled glass reduces the need to use virgin product but doesn’t really assist in the reduction of the production overhead. There are emerging bottle options in both aluminium and paper but in the most, these remain in their infancy.
Today V is bottled in glass – but this is not a long term plan. We are already working with specialists to support our transition to a more sustainable material for our product and anticipate all our product to be shipped in more sustainable material (both in terms of production and recycling) before the end of 2024. Watch this space!
To avoid breakages (and disappointment!) we have to make sure our product is well packaged when shipped. We use a specialist liquid courier, not only because they reduce the level of breakages but because other couriers insist on additional packaging to transport liquid (that is sometimes a cardboard shell or even a plastic sleeve) which increases our impact. The cardboard we use is sustainably sourced from forests managed by the Foresty Stewardship Council, with full traceability. The recycled content of our board is currently around 79% (higher than FSC Standard Mix). The 21% virgin board is recyclable up to 10 times.
5) When we can’t solve or remove the impact on all of these points how do we compensate?
To contribute towards sustainability, we currently partner with Ecologi to support our climate compensation for the emissions we simply cannot avoid. With Ecologi, we do 2 things; we plant trees for every order that is placed with V, this is very much around future benefit and impact and whilst an important part of our strategy does not make an immediate impact. That being the case, we also work with them to support CO2e avoidance projects across the world – that has meaningful, immediate impact. This allows us to make a difference both today and tomorrow.
6) How do we be open and honest about what we are doing and the impact we have
This is important, particularly with the rise of greenwashing amongst even some of the worlds largest brands. Our commitment is that we shall produce a yearly Impact Report that will talk through our emissions, our initiatives to reduce them and the climate compensation efforts. This will be publicly available, with 2024 (our launch year) being our first assessment year.
At V Rum we’re championing sustainability. We believe that acting sustainably shouldn’t be a choice, but a responsibility, and we’re choosing to do everything in our power to craft a better tomorrow.
