Sustainability
Why is Sustainability important to us?
We know all to well what damage our lifestyles have caused to the climate over the last few hundred years. With landfills overflowing, ice caps melting and the rate of extinction among animals and insects higher than ever, it is vital that we do our part to help our planet for the next generation - and the ones after that! This is why have set ourselves goals so that our team in Listoke Distillery can be proud of the legacy we are leaving behind.
What do we do to aid our sustainability goals?
1. Distillation:
Our iStill technology allows us to produce high quality, premium spirits without creating excess waste.
The heavy oils at the beginning of the distillation run are added to soften our hand sanitizer. The watery remnants of the distillation process (also known as Tails) are redistilled and brought back to 96% Grain Neutral Spirit so it can be reused for another batch.
The spent botanicals are left in the still and run again to make a batch of hand sanitizer.
The end waste from the botanicals are then put to compost. These botanicals are originally sourced in an ethical and environmental fashion through our supplier.
2. Water:
Water is our cooling element for distillation to convert the steam back into liquid. We have a recycled water system in place that services all 3 iStills as well as the 18 stills in our Gin School. Instead of flushing water through each still and wasting thousands of litres per week, we simply refill our tank every 6 months so only use 10,000 litres of water in an entire year.
3. Waste:
As well as reducing our water waste and botanical waste, we also recycle all of the packaging material that is brought into the distillery. This can be as simple as reusing boxes from deliveries, recycling plastic, glass and cardboard and ensuring our labels are printed on recyclable material. We also send products out in sustainable air bags that can be recycled or else are biodegradable. All of our lightbulbs are energy saving and on a timer so as not to overuse electricity.
How is our sustainability measured?
We are working with two incredible organisations to monitor our sustainability and hit milestones as we go. Through Bord Bia, we are members of the Origin Green Programme. This is an annual application to achieve Origin Green Status which shows our customers, suppliers and investors that we are actively expanding on the work that we do to help our local and global climate and take new steps each year to maximise this affect.
We have also signed up for a 12 month programme with Enso Initiatives which is an incredible online sustainability solution to track our progress, set new goals and achieve greater positive effect on our surrounding environment.
Social impact is extremely important to us in terms of helping our local community out as well as being actively involved in sustainability efforts. This includes Tidy Towns, supplying sponsorship for fundraisers and aiding in any activity we can to give a little back.
A milestone example of this was when we worked with Reforest Nation and an amazing group of volunteers to plant 750 indigenous trees to help boost the surrounding ecosystem and reduce our carbon footprint yet again.
