Bacardi Awards Employees for Remarkable Sustainability Efforts
HAMILTON, Bermuda, April 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In celebration of Earth Month, family-owned Bacardi honors employee-led environmental sustainability-related initiatives in its 3rd Annual Bacardi Limited Good Spirited Awards program. Employees received recognition for their outstanding environmental achievements within five different award categories celebrating the implementation of sustainability improvements, brand innovation or activity, employees championing green initiatives, and external partnerships delivering upon the Bacardi vision to a balanced impact on the environment.
"It's inspiring to see the ongoing commitment Bacardi employees have toward building a more sustainable future where they live and work," says Rodolfo Nervi, vice president of global safety, quality, and sustainability for Bacardi. "What makes these accolades even more meaningful is that each was nominated by their peers from around the world."
The eco-conscious endeavors provide Bacardi with long-term improvements for a more sustainable future across operations, packaging and responsible sourcing and drive the company closer to its vision to reach a net-zero impact—to put back into the environment at least as much as it takes away. In support of the Good Spirited mission, the award trophies are made from recycled oak and acknowledge activities between February 2016 – March 2017.
The 3rd Annual Bacardi Limited Good Spirited Award recipients:
Production Facility
Winner: Bacardi India Private Limited (Nanjangud, India)
The multifaceted initiatives of the Bacardi distillery in India create savings while promoting eco-conscious activities as well as social responsibility. The facility's efforts exemplify a full-circle commitment as the plant delivered a balanced impact on the environment, company, and community. The Nanjangud-based facility reduced power consumption by 15% over the last two years as it optimized operations with a complete changeover to light-emitting diode (LED) lighting from less-efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. The facility didn't stop there. It also promoted energy-saving tips and awareness on campus while, off campus, it reached out to four nearby villages to replace inefficient and expensive incandescent lighting with 160 recycled bulbs removed from the plant during the LED-bulb changeover. Employees also illustrated their commitment to the Good Spirited culture as a team of 15 worked to clean up trash from the banks of the Kapila River.
Honorable Mention: Bacardi Bottling Corporation (Jacksonville, Fla.)
The Bacardi Bottling Corporation facility in Jacksonville recycles 97% of its materials campus-wide and achieved zero-waste-to-landfill for seven out of 12 months. Also, the rum bottling plant reduced water use by 21.5% and decreased water waste as well as liquid losses through enhanced operations that effectively cut processing time in half. To accomplish its zero-waste-to-landfill status, the facility invented a "Recycle Rodeo" for its 250 employees where recycling containers were installed around the 92-acre campus. These new containers collate waste into separate recyclables and garbage bins. The campus also activated a "GarbageCon" initiative to encourage central recycling. The result was the volume of waste reduced by more than 300 tons—equal to a 35-ton reduction in landfill waste.
Brand Innovation
Winner: 42BELOW® Eco Soap (Brand Marketing, Australia/New Zealand)
When bars gave 42BELOW vodka lemons, it didn't make lemonade—it made soap. For three months, 42BELOW vodka collected old, used and unwanted fruit from bars in New Zealand and Australia and found a way to recycle these leftovers into the world's first hand soap made from cocktail lemons. Then the brand gave the eco soap back to participating bars for free, for use in their bathrooms. Described as recycling on a social scale, the campaign effectively turned 400 kilograms of fruit waste into 20,000 sachets of soap and 700 hand-pump glass bottles of soap—in drink terms, that's more than 3,200 cocktails. Watch how to the soap is made.
Honorable Mention: Save the Cuba Libre, Save the Planet (Operations, Tultitlán, México)
Ecowatch.org cites enough plastic is thrown out each year to circle the earth four times. The Bacardi No Straws Pledge inspired teams to combat this serious, growing problem. The operations team at the facility in Tultitlán, Mexico, created a video called "Save the Cuba Libre, Save the Planet" showing how to prepare Original BACARDÍ Cuba Libre cocktail while promoting a no straws message.
Green Champion
Winner: Helen Smith (Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) Advisor, John Dewar & Sons, Glasgow, Scotland)
Through her tenacity, drive, ingenuity and willingness to create and promote eco-conscious initiatives, EHS Advisor Helen Smith takes Bacardi in the United Kingdom to another level of sustainability. She is credited with creating sustainability initiatives including the purchase of reusable cups, saving more than 1,000 paper cups per week at the Glasgow facility, and starting an "Electric Amnesty" program to collect and re-home unwanted appliances. Helen was also instrumental in the Glasgow facility's designation as a certified Carbon Trust facility. Her environmental spirit is not just confined to the distillery walls as she sits on the Scotch Whisky Association Water & Effluent Committee, which shares and supports the Scotch whisky industry environment strategy.
Honorable Mention: Kara Bogden (Beverage Scientist, Bacardi-Martini Product Development, Jacksonville, Fla.)
Beverage Scientist Kara Bogden has made environmental causes her passion as she finds a way to make improvements and restore natural environments including creating a monarch butterfly project, setting up bird nesting boxes, and building planters for the milkweed plants on campus. Going even further in biodiversity, she worked with the Lubee Bat Conservatory and Quality, Health & Safety colleague Eric Hearn to install bat boxes to help repopulate the area and allow researchers to study the local population of bats. In addition to wildlife efforts, Kara also secured TerraCycle® recycling boxes for plastics to help the lab on campus dispose of all the tasting cups it must use. These boxes allow the Jacksonville facility to maximize its recycling as these cups are not recyclable in conventional bins.
Sustainable Office
Winner: Tultitlán, México
For Bacardi employees in Tultitlán, Good Spirited is a way of being together, consolidating and doing more with less. The office underwent an extreme environmental makeover designed to reduce energy, water consumption and waste, as well as increase information flow and decision-making in production activities. The new, modern office design, which features 24 open work areas in addition to six casual conversation areas, collectively adds to the environmental mission as space is shared among the team members. Modernized fixtures now offer energy efficient LED lighting. In addition, the new, smaller space requires less than half the number of air conditioners previously required. The new units are eco-friendly and significantly reduce the office's carbon footprint. Moreover, new natural lighting and LED bulbs reduced energy use by more than half.
Honorable Mention: Pessione, Italy
In Pessione, home to the iconic Italian brand MARTINI®, employees have reconsidered all office operations down to the coffee pods and the everyday paper used for business activities. Because the Pessione office uses about 8,000 coffee pods each year, they made an impactful switch to fully biodegradable, compostable coffee pods that can be easily disposed of along with spent coffee grounds and other organic waste. In addition, fully biodegradable cups and wooden stirrers are used to make each cup of brew sustainable. The office also swapped the white paper it used for 100% recycled paper for all printing. Pessione is one of the Bacardi sites with "Zero Waste to Landfill" status.
Partnership
Winner: Bacardi USA & Ryder System, Inc.
Bacardi USA consistently runs its operations and logistics the SmartWay®, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) likes the way it moves. For the second year in a row, the EPA honored Bacardi USA with its SmartWay Excellence Award as an industry leader in freight supply chain environmental performance and energy efficiency in transportation logistics, together with its partner Ryder, Inc. Through its SmartWay partnership with Ryder, Inc., beginning in 2008, Bacardi USA has vastly improved transportation efficiencies as the Company reduced carbon emissions by more than 20%. Just seven years ago, Bacardi USA shipments over the road totaled 65%, and rail logistics totaled 35%. Fast-forward to today, and the numbers are flipped with 35% of its shipments traveling over the road and 65% moving via intermodal rail.
Honorable Mention: Bacardi Bottling Corporation & Lubee Bat Conservancy
It's only natural for Bacardi to be concerned with bats and where they live. In reverence to the world's smallest flying mammal and the Company's iconic symbol, the wildlife team at the bottling facility in Jacksonville, Florida, partnered with Lubee Bat Conservancy to erect three bat shelters to replenish the habitat surrounding the 92-acre Bacardi campus. Embossed with the Bacardi and Lubee Bat Conservancy emblems, the bat caves are expected to house about 500 bats total including several bat species: evening; tri-color; and Mexican free-tailed.
The award recipients and their campaigns represent only a small percentage of the many Good Spirited activities that took place over the last year to generate sizable reductions in water, GHG emissions, and waste to landfill. Many strategies also involved community support, increased biodiversity, key stakeholder engagement with governments and customers. Overall, each initiative, from the smallest to largest, has improved environmental awareness and made Bacardi an industry-leader in sustainability.
"Our award-winning Good Spirited platform continues to reward and challenge Bacardi employees in all levels and functions to innovate in the environmental conservation arena," adds Nervi.
Since 2006, when Bacardi began tracking its global impact on the environment, it has improved water use efficiency by 46% and reduced GHG intensity ratio by 50%. Building on current programs and efficiencies that reduce its environmental impacts, the Bacardi Limited "Good Spirited" sustainability program sets specific goals in Responsible Sourcing, Global Packaging, and Operational Efficiencies in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water us to help the Company reach its vision of a net zero impact.
To learn more about Bacardi Limited and its "Good Spirited: Building a Sustainable Future" environmental initiative across the entire Bacardi family of premium spirits and wine brands, visit http://www.bacardilimited.com/good-spirited.
About Bacardi Limited
Bacardi Limited, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, produces and markets internationally recognized spirits and wines. The Bacardi brand portfolio comprises more than 200 brands and labels, including BACARDÍ® rum, GREY GOOSE® vodka, DEWAR'S® Blended Scotch whisky, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® gin, MARTINI® vermouth and sparkling wines, CAZADORES® 100% blue agave tequila, and other leading and emerging brands including WILLIAM LAWSON'S® Blended Scotch whisky, ERISTOFF® vodka, and ST-GERMAIN® elderflower liqueur.
Founded 155 years ago in Santiago de Cuba on February 4, 1862, family-owned Bacardi manufactures its brands at 29 facilities and sells in more than 160 countries. Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited. www.BacardiLimited.com
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