BIER Member Spotlight: Nick Enfield

Name: Nick Enfield | Senior Manager Global Environmental Sustainability

Company: Suntory Global Spirits

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn

Welcome to our series aimed at spotlighting the individual leaders within BIER member companies and stakeholder organizations. Learn how these practitioners and their companies are addressing pressing challenges around water, energy, agriculture, climate change, and what inspires each of them to advance environmental sustainability in the beverage sector and collectively, overall.

Briefly describe your role and responsibilities and how long you have worked with your company.

I've been with Suntory Global Spirits since late 2018, and I am currently in the role of Senior Manager for Global Environmental Sustainability. In this role, I provide subject matter expert support for our commercial, fulfillment, marketing, and public affairs functions. The primary focus of this role is to help the business meet the sustainability needs of our customers, monitor sustainability regulations and trends, and also lead a number of global initiatives on behalf of Suntory Global Spirits. I am focused on capturing the voice of the customer from a sustainability perspective – My aim is to ensure that ways of working and communicating, as well as reporting externally within customer conversations, are met. I participate in customer meetings and thought leadership and help provide regular updates to our commercial organization for reporting and monitoring. I work closely with our public affairs and regulatory affairs teams as we evaluate and put a framework behind the risk impact, not only from a reputation perspective but also from a financial and operational one, to ensure that we communicate effectively and that the findings are presented to our leadership. Ultimately, it's imperative that we maintain awareness of global environmental sustainability trends, tools, and other resources. Translating and applying those potential opportunities helps ensure our programs and strategies stay up-to-date and aligned with the expectations of not only our customers but also internal stakeholders and the community.

How has the company's sustainability program evolved over the years, and what are your specific priorities for 2024?

In 2021, we launched our Proof Positive sustainability strategy. This is our comprehensive enterprise-wide sustainability strategy with long-term commitments to protect our natural resources for future generations. Sustainability is intrinsically linked with our business. More sustainably sourced ingredients make higher quality products and, in the long run, we don’t have a business if we don’t have the purest water, or the finest grain to make the best whisky.

All of our goals are aligned with the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) and stem from that vision of a sustainable society, ensuring that we are enriching people's lives, and those of our communities, and conserving the natural environment. One of the great things about Suntory Global Spirits is that everyone, including our executive leaders, our brand teams, our operations teams, managers, associates, and all the teams on the ground, each play a part in implementing our Proof Positive strategy.

Proof Positive has three pillars: Nature Positive, Community Positive, and Consumer Positive. Nature Positive focuses on minimizing our impact and addresses water, climate, forest, field, and packaging

Consumer Positive is about working to provide information about our products to help consumers make the right choices for personal well-being, build a culture of responsibility, and reduce alcohol-related harm in the community.

Community Positive is focused on nurturing our communities and building a more inclusive and equitable culture where everyone can thrive.

We’ve made some fantastic achievements and progress against our commitments since launching Proof Positive. Whether it's some of the more recent news about collaborating with governments in terms of ensuring working with local innovators, technology innovators, and governments to use hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to help decarbonize our distillation process, or it's celebrating a world first by successfully trialing direct fire distillation with hydrogen at our Hakushu distillery, we've achieved some really exciting things. We want to push that further and accelerate progress, in partnership with our parent company Suntory Holdings. I think with the team that we've got here at Suntory Global Spirits, we are in a really good position to accelerate our progress.

Learn more about Nick Enfield in this BIER Member Spotlight.