Beyond lightweighting: new ideas for sustainability in the drinks sector
In attempting to become more environmentally sustainable, lightweighting glass bottles was one of the first areas drinks brands focussed on. Anywhere from 20 to 40% of a drinks brand's carbon footprint is produced by its packaging, and by making bottles lighter, the industry made good progress in reducing its impact. The average glass wine bottle weighs around 450g, whereas an equivalent aluminium bottle comes in at under 85g.
But weight isn't the whole story.
Increasingly, there are concerns that lightweight alternatives to glass can come with toxic drawbacks in the form of plastic and chemical liners. That highlights the need for brands to think more holistically and systemically. Here are some areas to consider.
Packaging: the next steps
Look beyond the bottle itself. Labels, closures, gifting solutions, and shipping materials all carry environmental consequences. Paper and card formats can be produced from non-tree fibres like agri-waste, mycelium, or recycled content, which reduces deforestation and water usage. Cork closures can be made from recycled and natural cork, a carbon-negative substrate. Aluminium closures can utilise 100% recycled aluminium and, as a bonus, detach from the bottle after use, ensuring they don't contaminate the recycling stream. Certain printers are even experimenting with non-carbon-based inks.
We should also consider where and how we produce the materials and substrates we use. Are factories as local to the market as possible? Do they run on renewables? Do they recycle their water? Do they ship and pack pallets in bio-polymer alternatives to reams of plastic wrap?
Through our work with brands like Tread Softly and Wise Wolf, we have incorporated many of these solutions: championing recycled and agri-waste content, avoiding harmful label adhesives, and integrating unbleached paper stocks. We took this a step further with the labelless wine bottles we designed for Crate, eliminating the need for adhesives and paper use altogether.
Other brands are going even further and removing the need for single-use packaging entirely - undoubtedly the most effective way to drive down a carbon footprint. From refillable wine bottles to returnable bottles, as with drinks brands such as Cowpunk, there are many ways to give people an intuitive, sustainable option.
Production: from harmful to regenerative
Drinks brands use natural resources, so it is vital to ensure that agricultural practices aren't harming the land. Regenerative agriculture improves soil health and biodiversity and stores carbon. The benefits are manifold: reducing spending on pesticides whilst improving crop resilience. Sapling Spirits uses regeneratively grown grain for its gin, and Tablas Creek refers to itself as the world's first regenerative organic certified vineyard.
A growing number of brands also focus on carbon insetting versus offsetting, finding ways to reinvest in the local land to drive biodiversity and sequester carbon. Mermaid Gin in the UK uses its profits to monitor and restore endangered seagrass near its distillery. In Scotland, Beam Suntory has shown a considerable commitment to restoring peatlands, a type of land that stores more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world combined, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
Delivery: a radical rethink
There is a great deal we can do with delivery systems. The idea of a global-localised distribution and supply chain is environmentally smart and efficient. The premise is to centralise bottling, labelling, and warehousing in a variety of locations worldwide, allowing companies to have local infrastructure on a global scale. Major players like Accolade and Diageo are doing this through their partnership with Encirc. Diageo has set its sights on reducing the carbon footprint of its glass by 90% by 2030, aiming to achieve this through investment in a new furnace that will run on green electricity and low-carbon hydrogen - highlighting the vital role energy sources play in drinks sustainability.
Petrochemical-based energy sources largely power the industry's transport and distribution infrastructure. That is a far bigger issue than the weight of the glass. If we can make transport fleets and international shipping run on renewable energy, the weight of the glass being transported within becomes almost insignificant. These sorts of larger-scale changes are where we can revolutionise the entire industry. It is no pipedream. Glenfiddich is already running its delivery trucks on low-emission bio-gas made from the distillery's own waste.
Glass and its enduring value
The growing enthusiasm for alternative formats should not close our eyes to the value of glass. There is a reason glass has been the format of choice for wine and spirits for millennia. It is the only format we use that is inert. Tetra, aluminium, and paper all have plastic liners, which leach micro-plastics over time, creating use-by dates that risk massive wastage if unsold, and contaminating landfill if not properly recycled. Glass should still be the preference in terms of maintaining product quality, avoiding waste, and minimising toxicity in our ecosystems.
In fact, with a move to a more circular infrastructure, we could benefit from making glass bottles heavier and more durable - enabling them to be refilled repeatedly and reducing our over-reliance on virgin materials.
As an industry, we are starting to make the first steps towards a more sustainable future. The time has come for fresh thinking and a new wave of innovation and progress on this topic.
Mariella Menato, Denomination's Head of Sustainability, wrote about new ideas for sustainability in the drinks sector in Dieline, January 2025.
