We take our responsibility to the environment very seriously and constantly look for opportunities to improve our sustainability and reduce our contribution to climate change, be that through our energy use, reducing our water consumption, increasing recycling, reducing waste to landfill and other environmental impacts.
Our main environmental impact comes from our factories located in Lublin in Poland, Plzen in the Czech Republic and Baltic in Germany. We operate bottling production in the Czech Republic and Poland and a distillery producing spirit from local raw materials in Germany. The factory acquired in Italy in 2019 will be included in the reporting from October 2021.
During the year we continued our environmental awareness campaigns for employees including: A tree for waste, Earth Day and Battery Day. Environmental training sessions were held for our employees and contractors, to help raise awareness and look to reduce the environmental impact of the Group.
Packaging
We continued our review of packaging which began in 2019 and strengthened our relationship with suppliers to reduce packaging where possible. This year 100% of our glass packaging was recyclable and almost 100% of our purchased packaging was recyclable.
We continue to work on increasing the amount of recycled raw materials in the production of our packaging which is currently at 31%. During the year, we signed agreements with packaging recovery organisations to arrange the recycling and recovery of packaging waste. See the case study on the next page.
During the year the percentage of packaging waste on the market which, in collaboration with a recovery organisation, was collected from the market in the form of waste produced by consumers and sent for recycling was:
| |
Poland |
Czech Republic |
| Plastic packaging |
24% |
50% |
| Aluminium |
51% |
55% |
| Steel packaging |
51% |
55% |
| Paper and cardboard packaging |
61% |
75% |
| Glass packaging |
61% |
75% |
| Wooden packaging |
16% |
15% |
In September 2020 we announced our partnership with EcoVadis as part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability improvement and improving the environmental and social performance within our supply chain. EcoVadis will provide an efficient, systematic and consistent way to assess suppliers across a wide variety of industries, helping us to strengthen the sustainability of our supply chain as well as our own operations.
Waste
Due to increased production in Poland, the amount of generated waste increased by 22%. The majority of this was transport packaging waste generated after using the raw material/packaging delivered to the plant. 99.6% of the waste produced on site was recycled.
In Czech Republic we were able to recycle 98% of the waste produced through employee training and improvement of waste sorting processes which led to 32.5% less waste being generated. In Germany we generated 23.6% less waste during the year.
Utilities consumption
In Poland, due to the rectification unit being in use for longer during 2020 and higher production, our utilities consumption increased compared to the previous year. In Czech Republic and Germany, production decreased, which decreased consumption.
Please see the table below for further details on utilities consumption during the year.
| |
2020
Million |
2019
Million |
% Increase/Decrease |
| Poland |
|
|
|
| Electricity (kWh) |
5.65 |
5.39 |
+4.8% |
| Gas (kWh) |
10.66 |
10.41 |
+2.4% |
| Water (litres) |
151.29 |
134.98 |
+12% |
| Czech Republic |
|
|
|
| Electricity (kWh) |
1.49 |
1.88 |
-20.4% |
| Gas (kWh) |
4.10 |
4.55 |
-9.8% |
| Water (litres) |
46.55 |
47.75 |
-3.0% |
| Germany |
|
|
|
| Electricity (kWh) |
10.02 |
10.23 |
-2.1% |
| Gas (kWh) |
23.23 |
26.50 |
-12.4% |
| Water (litres) |
226.04 |
248.49 |
-9.0% |
Utilities Consumption Goals
| |
|
Goal set 2019
and 2020 |
YE 2019 |
YE 2020 |
2019 vs 2020 |
| Czech Republic |
electric energy (kWh/L FG) |
0.06 |
0.05 |
0.05 |
- |
| |
gas (kWh/L FG) |
0.13 |
0.12 |
0.13 |
 |
| |
water (L/L FG) |
1.60 |
1.30 |
1.52 |
|
| Poland |
electric energy (kWh/L FG) |
0.075 |
0.06 |
0.06 |
- |
| |
gas (kWh/L FG) |
0.35 |
0.12 |
0.12 |
- |
| |
water (L/L FG) |
2.30 |
1.52 |
1.65 |
|
| Stock Spirits Group |
electric energy (kWh/L FG) |
0.14 |
0.14 |
0.14 |
- |
| |
gas (kWh/L FG) |
0.45 |
0.33 |
0.31 |
 |
| |
water (L/L FG) |
3.7 |
3.44 |
3.46 |
|
Water
| Location |
Level of Water Stress |
| Germany |
High (40–80%) |
| Czech Republic |
Low-medium (10–20%) |
| Poland |
Medium-high (20–40%) |
In 2020, we conducted a risk analysis and assessment for our own water intakes and for external suppliers' water intakes using the AQUEDUCT tool which covered all production plants. The risk to the availability of water resources was analysed for individual locations (including aspects such as: water stress, water resource depletion, inter-annual variability, seasonal variability, drop in groundwater levels, flood risk of rivers, risk of coastal floods, risk of drought).