Brown-Forman Publishes Fifth Corporate Responsibility Report

LOUISVILLE, July 21, 2015 /3BL Media/ – Brown-Forman announced today the publication of its fifth corporate responsibility report, covering the company’s performance, progress, and challenges in the areas of alcohol responsibility, environmental sustainability, employee relations, diversity and inclusion, and community involvement.  The report is available on the company’s web site at www.brown-forman.com/responsibility.  

The report, “Partners in Responsibility,” emphasizes the company’s efforts to build meaningful partnerships with non-profits, customers, industry organizations, peers, and others outside the organization. Throughout the report, Brown-Forman highlights these relationships in an interview-style dialogue focused on how the company works with its partners, what makes their efforts successful, and the challenges and opportunities going forward. Among the partners featured include Volunteers of America, The Ad Council, Human Rights Campaign, Fund for the Arts, Ceres, and the Fundación de Investigaciones Sociales (FISAC) in Mexico, an organization committed to promoting a responsible drinking culture.

“We build friendships both inside and outside our company, and we value these relationships as a source of guidance and a means to help do more collectively than we can on our own,” said company Chief Executive Officer Paul Varga.  “An important component of our endurance and success is considering our performance in terms of both what we achieve and how we achieve it.”

To better prioritize the responsibility issues that matter to the business, this year Brown-Forman conducted an assessment to formally identify the company’s key social, environmental, and ethical issues. The engagement efforts confirmed that alcohol responsibility – specifically, promoting responsible drinking and responsible brand marketing  -- remain top priorities, alongside efforts to advance environmental sustainability and ensure human rights and diversity in the workplace. As a result, these and other issues are addressed in the report.

Brown-Forman has made significant updates and additions to Our Thinking About Drinking (www.ourthinkingaboutdrinking.com) where the company shares its perspective about critical alcohol-related issues and invites the opinions and comments of others.  The company continues to implement the Producers Commitments to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol, as well as many of its own alcohol responsibility programs which are described in the report.

The report also mentions that Brown-Forman was recently recognized by both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Mexico’s Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) for environmental leadership and commitments to improvement. Since the last report two years ago, the company met its previously established environmental sustainability goals and set new, more aggressive targets focused on reducing absolute greenhouse gas emissions, sending zero waste to landfill, and increasing the efficiency of water use and wastewater discharges.  Although the company showed improvements in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water use, and energy use compared to the previous year, it  did not make progress against GHG, water, and wastewater efficiency targets as compared to a baseline year of 2012. The company is implementing plans to accelerate its pace of improvement to meet the new goals and expects to show progress in its next report.

Other highlights of the Corporate Responsibility Report include Brown-Forman’s ongoing positive employee engagement scores and status as a Global Best Employer. In addition, the company has again received a perfect 100 score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. The company has also established a multi-local giving program to extend its deep roots of community investment in its hometown of Louisville, Kentucky to employees in offices around the world.

For more than 140 years, Brown-Forman Corporation has enriched the experience of life by responsibly building fine quality beverage alcohol brands, including Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, Jack Daniel’s & Cola, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey, Gentleman Jack, Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel, Finlandia, Southern Comfort, Korbel, el Jimador, Woodford Reserve, Canadian Mist, Herradura, New Mix, Sonoma-Cutrer, Early Times, and Chambord.  Brown-Forman’s brands are supported by nearly 4,400 employees and sold in approximately 160 countries worldwide.  For more information about the company, please visit http://www.brown-forman.com/.

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