The International Alliance for Responsible Drinking's (IARD) member companies – the world’s leading beer, wine, and spirits producers – undertake a wide range of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives as part of their commitments to sustainability and social responsibility.
AB InBev recently unveiled the latest participants in its award-winning 100+ Accelerator program, selecting 46 sustainability-focused startups from more than 1,700 submissions. This latest cohort is the largest since the program was launched in 2018 to help make progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and AB InBev’s ambitious goals to advance water stewardship, smart agriculture, circular packaging, and climate action. The 100+ Accelerator gives cohort companies six months of remote programming and training to accelerate their collaboration and growth, plus a pilot or alliance with partner companies, which since 2021 have included the Coca-Cola Company, Colgate-Palmolive Company, and Unilever. READ MORE
In the U.S., Anheuser-Busch has launched a new Responsible Delivery website that gives retailers free resources to encourage responsible delivery, including proper ID verification. This effort builds on Anheuser-Busch’s partnership with Drizly and Training for Intervention ProcedureS (TIPS) encouraging retailers to expand their training on responsible alcohol delivery by providing them with educational tools and solutions for delivery personnel. READ MORE
In the U.K., Asahi recently moved forward with a range of sustainability initiatives towards its Legacy 2030 sustainability goals, including reaching a 2025 target to send 0% of waste to landfill several years before schedule. READ MORE
In Poland, Asahi’s Komapania Piwowarska brand recently worked with social media advertisers to produce a new drink driving prevention campaign that featured a new bespoke hip-hop song to resonate with key audiences and raise awareness credibly and innovatively. KP used social media to ask the public to submit “don't drink and drive” rhymes to become part of the song’s lyrics, and the song is now available on major streaming platforms. READ MORE
Bacardi has eliminated 100% of plastics from all of its new gift packs, saving almost 275 tons of single-use plastic annually. This is the latest milestone on Bacardi’s path to being 100% plastic free by 2030 and it has become the first distiller to use a new bio-based, 100% compostable material made from potato starch and cellulose fibers to replace plastic vacuum packaging. READ MORE
In France, Bacardi recently relaunched its Shake Your Future initiative, which gives young unemployed people an opportunity to take up a career in the world of bartending. In addition to providing the life-changing opportunity to train as a professional bartender, the initiative will simultaneously help the city’s bars and restaurants meet a high demand for professional bartenders. READ MORE
In the U.K., Beam Suntory has partnered with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to restore peatland in Scotland, promote carbon sequestration, and protect invaluable biodiversity. 2023 will be the first year of the second phase of the Peatland Water Sanctuary (PWS) initiative, a joint $4 million conservation project launched in 2021 by Beam Suntory and its parent company, Suntory Holdings. Over the next year, there will be extensive fieldwork to design a restoration plan, with physical work expected for winter 2023, including re-establishing original peatland vegetation to promote the regeneration of approximately 160 hectares of peatland. READ MORE
The Suntory Group also recently launched a new project for regenerative agriculture for barley production in the U.K. to lower greenhouse gas emission. The project will begin production in 2023 with the ambition to produce barley with 50% lower GHG emissions within five years. READ MORE
In the U.S., Brown-Forman recently donated $100,000 to its partners at the Armed Services YMCA National Headquarters in support of Jack Daniel’s Operation Ride Home program. More than $2.3 million has been donated to the program over the last 12 years to provide more than 10 million active-duty military or junior-enlisted members and their families with a way home for the holidays. READ MORE
Brown-Forman’s Woodford Reserve and Sonoma-Cutrer have also partnered to help provide up to 500,000 meals through a $50,000 joint donation to No Kid Hungry, a national campaign dedicated to ending childhood hunger. READ MORE
Carlsberg recently launched a global campaign to reinforce its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) commitment to all its employees. This commitment is embedded in Carlsberg’s five-year SAIL’27 Strategy and forms a key pillar of its Together Towards Zero And Beyond ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) pledges. READ MORE
In Malaysia, Carlsberg recently launched a month-long #CelebrateResponsibly campaign to reach out directly to people at music festivals, which have now returned following the COVID-19 pandemic. Carlsberg Malaysia teams attended three of the country’s major festivals as #CelebrateResponsibly ambassadors and signed up 1,200 festival-goers to a responsible drinking pledge. READ MORE
The Coca-Cola Company recently launched a new music partnership between Sprite, Fresca, Seagram’s, Mark Ronson, and Madlib to create a new musical EP to promote recycling. The “Recycled Records” EP was created almost entirely from “recycled” sound samples captured during the PET bottle-to-bottle recycling process, highlighting the beverage brands’ recent switch from green to clear PET packaging.READ MORE
Coca-Cola has also partnered with the Valuable 500's Generation Valuable initiative, to create a program that will launch in 2023 to accelerate opportunities for people with disabilities in reaching the executive level. The partnership is part of Coca-Cola’s ability and inclusion framework for action. READ MORE
In the U.K., Diageo has entered a new partnership with glass manufacturer Encirc to build a new hydrogen-powered furnace that will create the world’s first net-zero glass bottles at scale. The furnace will begin production in 2027, initially reducing carbon emissions by 90% with an energy mix of green electricity and low-carbon hydrogen. By 2030, the furnace will use carbon-capture technology to capture the remaining emissions and will produce up to 200 million net-zero bottles for Diageo’s spirit brands per year. READ MORE
Diageo’s Smirnoff recently launched a new global responsible drinking campaign to encourage people to “Be Wildly Responsible” during the festive season. The campaign consists of six engaging digital animations for social media, created by award-winning Venezuelan animator Igor Bastidas, plus pop-up “Be Wildly Responsible” bars across the world. READ MORE
Heineken’s Heineken 0.0 alcohol-free beer brand recently partnered with Uber on a new responsible consumption initiative during the Formula 1 Heineken Grande Prêmio de São Paulo 2022 in Brazil. This initiative offered Uber users nationwide discount vouchers for their trips and delivered responsibility messages through the app, featuring motorsport celebrities Daniel Ricciardo, Sergio Perez, and Naomi Schiff. The three drivers also star in Heineken's “When drinking, never drive” global F1 campaign, which enjoyed additional support through the Uber and Waze apps. READ MORE
Heineken 0.0 has also launched a new festive designated-driver campaign in Northern Ireland, which reward drivers with a complimentary non-alcohol beer for driving their family and friends home safely. READ MORE
And in Italy, Heineken’s Birra Moretti Foundation is starting the second year of its Responsibility in Education project, which promotes responsible drinking through the hospitality sector. In 2023, the foundation will train 750 students from 10 hospitality training institutes. READ MORE
In Japan, Kirin’s Chateau Mercian wine brand recently won the Ministry of the Environment’s Good Life Award, which is awarded to projects and initiatives that benefit the environment and society. Kirin has been conducting ecological surveys at Chateau Mercian’s Mariko Vineyard since 2014, in cooperation with the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, to recover biodiversity in the area by converting idle wasteland into grass-grown vineyards. The project embodies the "Nature Positive" theme that Kirin has set in its "Environmental Vision 2050." READ MORE
Kirin is also co-sponsoring the launch of a new walking football event for adults and children with the Japan Football Association (JFA). Kirin and JFA aim to solve social issues by co-creating community value together, and the "Kirin Family Challenge Cup" will help build a more sustainable society by connecting people through sport. READ MORE
In Romania, Molson Coors’ Bergenbier SA brand recently launched two new initiatives to address drink driving and environmental issues. The national "Responsible Supporters in Traffic" campaign is supported by Uber and will promote responsible drinking and warn against the dangers of drink driving. READ MORE
And in Ploiesti, the brewer is partnering with the global air-quality monitoring company Airly to install five monitoring sensors in parks around the city. This “Friends of the Air” project is part of Bergenbier SA’s “Friends know to be responsible” sustainability platform, which was launched earlier in 2022. READ MORE
In the U.S., Molson Coors recently partnered with the International Town & Gown Association (ITGA) to give universities the 2025 Alcohol Harm Reduction Toolkit to help address alcohol use at students’ off-campus parties. The project will contribute towards the World Health Organization’s goal of at least 10% relative reduction in the harmful use of alcohol by 2025. READ MORE
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton was recently awarded a prestigious triple “A” rating by global environmental non-profit Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP): one of only 12 companies to achieve this of the 15,000 participating companies globally. This rating recognized LVMH’s leadership in corporate transparency and performance on climate change, forests and water security. READ MORE
LVMH’s Glenmorangie brand also recently reached a milestone in its Dornoch Environmental Enhancement Project (DEEP) marine biodiversity partnership with Heriot-Watt University and the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), by restoring a further 6,000 Native European oysters to the Dornoch Firth. The pioneering project has reintroduced native oysters to the Firth for the first time in over 100 years, and will have restored 60,000 oysters by the end of 2022. READ MORE
And in the U.S., Pernod Ricard recently announced a significant €238 million ($250 million) investment to build a state-of-the-art, carbon neutral distillery and aging warehouses for its Jefferson’s Bourbon brand. The Kentucky distillery is expected to be the first of its size in the U.S. to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) sustainability certification, and the distillery and warehouses will incorporate a range of low carbon technologies. The distiller will keep working with local farmers and suppliers to source ingredients and casks as part of Pernod Ricard’s commitment to protect and nurture the terroir around its facilities.READ MORE
And in Mexico, Pernod Ricard’s Kahlua brand has continued work on its ambitious 10-year project in Veracruz: Coffee for Good. The project has just achieved a goal of helping farmers in four remote villages to grow enough beans to provide 100% of the coffee used in Kahlúa by 2022, and continues to with the coffee farmers to improve living conditions in their communities and to build financially resilient businesses. Coffee for Good has trained 704 farmers in sustainable farming, 70 women are in leadership positions, and 213,000 new coffee trees have been planted. READ MORE
© 2021 International Alliance for Responsible Drinking
IARD’s members and the members of its Partnership Council are a diverse group of organizations with a variety of viewpoints. They might not necessarily agree on all or any subjects. Any statements, findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed on this website do not reflect the policies or views of all IARD members or the organizations they represent, unless explicitly stated. However, all members agree on and support IARD’s mission of reducing the harmful use of alcohol.
The resources on this website are not intended as health advice to individuals about their drinking. People with specific questions about their drinking are encouraged to consult a healthcare professional. Together, they can determine what is best for that individual, based on individual risk factors, including family history, genetics, and lifestyle. For some people, the better choice may be to not drink at all.
