I am convinced that in the medium term the consumer will demand products that do not just demonstrate net zero but actually provide a positive impact for society. For Scotch that will involve looking at the full embodied carbon required to put that bottle of whisky on a retailer’s shelf including packaging, shipping and marketing impacts for that product.
On the face of it the Scotch Whisky industry is leading the way with commitments to reach net zero across the industry by 2040. Huge strides have been made over many years in energy efficiency to significantly reduce the amount of energy required throughout the process. However, innovation and ambition has, in my humble opinion, been lacking in recent times. Every time I attend a conference I listen to how Nc’nean Distillery is held up as an exemplar for the industry. Don’t get me wrong, I love what the team at Nc’nean do and they are certainly ahead of the curve, but in my opinion running a biomass boiler is not particularly green – the source of fuel might be more sustainable but you are still generating carbon dioxide.
It seems to me that the industry is betting that hydrogen will be the clean fuel of the future and I don’t necessarily disagree. It is, however, not without uncertainty and I strongly believe that we need to consider other routes.
We have plentiful sources of renewable, clean energy in Scotland including wind, solar, tidal and wave technology. The key concerns for distilleries are firstly the significantly higher cost of electricity compared to gas and secondly the need to have a reliable source of energy that is available 24 hours a day. For me, battery storage and the huge advancements made in this area could hold the key. If we can generate energy on site and store it for when it is needed then, for the first time, we can truly say that we have a net zero distillery.
If we then recycle waste products through an anaerobic digestion plant and filter waste waters back to source through a reed bed system all on site then we will truly have a fully, self-contained green distillery. That is the ultimate goal of The Stirling Whisky Company.
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