SUSTAINABILITY
SUSTAINABILITY
WE HAVE ONLY ONE PLANET
ON WHICH TO DRINK WHISKY
And we need quite a few things apart from whisky from this planet. That is why the question of sustainability is fundamental. To us, and to everyone else using natural resources.
We view sustainability the same way we view whisky production: What if it could be done better by thinking differently? What if whisky could be made with a less negative impact on the environment? Of course, it can!
We started by designing the distillery in order to minimize the environmental footprint of our production process. We are proud of this. But sustainability is a wide and complex question spanning a vast range of activities, from growing the raw materials through to selecting packaging and modes of transport. We decided to enlist assistance to sort out what really has an environmental impact in our production process, from barley to bottle. Not until then could we chart a course towards improvement. We also have an ambition to openly and honestly account for our efforts. We view this as part of our ongoing quest to create an even better whisky.
A few examples of what we are already doing:
The energy we use for distilling comes from the district heating network. It feeds hot water into our process and when we have extracted what we need, the still hot water is returned to the network and used for heating homes and offices.
The energy we buy from the district heating network comes from renewable energy sources. We do not burn any oil in our production.
The distillation takes place in a vacuum. The decision to build stills for vacuum distillation was mostly a question of better spirits. But there is the added advantage of lowering the boiling point, which in turn means that the entire process needs far less energy.
The distillation process heats the air in the distillery, after which the air is moved into the warehouse to heat it during winter.
We reclaim as much energy as possible. The idea behind it is that no heating that is added to -or created in the distillery should go to waste. One example is that the excess heat from our spirit stills is used for our mash stills and our brewing system.
We use an open cooling tower, utilizing the low Swedish outdoor temperature for cooling.
Our draff is collected by a local farmer who uses it for animal feed.
The residue from the distillation is used to produce biogas.
The cooling jackets on the washbacks are used to heat water used in other parts of the production process.