Diageo Hosts Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable

Industry Leaders Unite to Share Best Practices, Advance Environmental Sustainability of Sector
Jun 13, 2016 10:00 AM ET

St. Paul, Minn., June 13, 2016 /3BL Media - Beverage industry leaders from across the globe convened May 17-19, 2016 for the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) semi-annual meeting. Diageo hosted the event in Edinburgh, Scotland. The three-day agenda focused on BIER’s current work to address climate change, mitigate environmental impacts and ensure sustainable growth of the beverage sector.

“We were pleased to welcome our colleagues from the world’s leading beverage companies,” said Roberta Barbieri, Global Environmental Sustainability Manager, Diageo. “BIER provides an invaluable outlet for the global beverage industry to meet, share best practices, and tackle the environmental issues that all member organizations are facing and we are pleased to be part of that.”

Meeting topics included discussions around energy and climate change, best practice sharing, transparency and disclosure, water sustainability, and future scenarios. A best practices workshop was held on Identifying Barriers to Scalability, and working groups met on various topics to tackle in-progress work streams, drive decisions for the path forward, and launch BIER’s 10th year of operation.

Meeting attendees also received a tour of Diageo’s Glenkinchie Distillery and enjoyed a Diageo hosted Scotch Whisky Experience.  

Through the collective experience and knowledge of its membership, BIER collaborates to define the environmental sustainability aspects most relevant to the beverage sector. By doing so, BIER is able to monitor data and trends, engage with key stakeholders, develop best practices and guide a course of action for the future. Current BIER initiatives include defining context-based metrics for water use, developing energy assessment tools to help prioritize and mitigate climate change impacts, and establishing guiding principles around ecosystem dependencies and biodiversity conservation measures across the beverage product value chain.​

About BIER
The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) is a technical coalition of leading global beverage companies working together to advance environmental sustainability within the beverage sector. BIER aims to affect sector change through work focused on water stewardship, energy efficiency and climate change, beverage container recycling, sustainable agriculture, and eco-system services. BIER members include: American Beverage Association, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bacardi, Beam Suntory, Brown-Forman, Carlsberg, The Coca-Cola Company, Constellation Brands, Inc., Danone Waters, Diageo, Ecolab, Fetzer Vineyards, Heineken, Jackson Family Wines, Keurig Green Mountain, Inc., MillerCoors, Molson Coors, New Belgium Brewing Company, Ocean Spray Cranberries, PepsiCo, Pernod Ricard, SABMiller and SealedAir. For more information, visit www.bieroundtable.com

About Diageo
Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit and Buchanan’s whiskies, Smirnoff, Cîroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo’s global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.