Scottish Whisky Goes Green

Reducing the environmental footprint of Scotland’s third largest industry

Energetic business, distilling. Not necessarily in the sense of hauling weighty sacks of malt about, but in the sense of bringing wort up to mashing temperature, holding it there while the sugars are extracted, cooling it down to pitching temperature, and then heating it up again in the still for distillation. In a single year, Scottish distilleries process five billion liters of wort — a sweet liquid that is fermented to make whisky — so cleaner, cheaper energy is a priority in the whisky industry.

Photo of Whisky StillsPhoto by Yves CosentinoThe Scottish whisky industry is working to reduce the environmental impacts of whisky production.

Then, too, 90 percent of the water and all of the grain used in the production process ends up as waste. And since it makes sense to site whisky factories near the raw materials, many distilleries have been built in isolated glens; fuel (except peat, where applicable) has to be shipped in, and all of the product has to be shipped out.

For decades, the Scottish whisky industry has been making modest efforts to reduce its environmental impact. Simple waste reduction measures such as feeding spent grain (“draff”) to livestock and using the protein-rich pot ale left over after distillation as soil conditioner have long been the norm. In the 1970s Glengarioch, one of the oldest operating distilleries in Scotland, briefly used its waste heat to warm nearby greenhouses. And since 1990, waste heat from Bowmore’s distillery has made a tropical spa of the community swimming pool, sited in a former warehouse at the distillery gates.

But it took the slowly-unfolding emergency of climate change to trigger a coordinated attack on energy consumption and waste. The Scottish whisky industry made its first Climate Change Agreement with the UK Government in 1999. Then, in 2009, the Scotch Whisky Association, with the support of both UK and Scottish governments, launched an independent environmental strategy, a list of targets it describes as “the most ambitious voluntary sustainability strategy of any manufacturing sector.” Since then, the pace of change has continuously accelerated.

By 2012, the industry had cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent from 2008 levels, despite an 11 percent increase in whisky production. Meanwhile, its energy consumption grew by little more than 1 percent, and the proportion of energy derived from non-fossil fuel sources increased from 3 percent to 16 percent. The proportion of packaging waste sent to landfills fell from 13 percent to 5 percent; and although the amount of cullet available for the manufacture of bottles actually fell, more and more recycled material went into packaging.

With the 2012 establishment of the government-backed Green Investment Bank, which works to accelerate the UK’s transition to a greener economy, financing became available for distillery companies to buy into renewables. In 2013 and 2014, several distilleries, including Tomatin, Aberfeldy, Balmenach, and Royal Brackla replaced oil-burning boilers with woodchip-fired combined heat and power (CHP) generators. According to the Green Investment Bank, the four installations are reducing their combined carbon dioxide emissions by around 20,000 tons a year. (A loophole in the European Union’s climate rules treats electricity generated by burning wood as carbon neutral. However, burning wood from whole trees produces more carbon emissions than burning fossil fuels.)

In addition to wood pellets, whisky production byproducts like draff and pot ale can also be used for energy production. The draff can be dried and burnt; the solids in pot ale can be separated out and anaerobically digested to produce biogas. These materials can either power CHP units for individual distilleries or generate electricity for sale to the national grid. A large plant that was opened in 2013 by a consortium of whisky companies — including Diageo, Chivas Brothers, Inver House, Edrington Group, Glen Grant and Benriach — generates 7 megawatts of energy a year from whisky waste, and saves 47,000 tons in carbon emissions a year. Diageo, another whisky producer, recently opened a brand-new £40 million distillery in Roseisle, which includes a biomass plant using distillery waste to generates 8.6 megawatts of its annual demand of 10.2 megawatts. As a bonus, it pumps its waste hot water to heat the maltings on the site.

All this doesn’t come cheap, though.

So what’s driving the industry to invest so heavily in becoming leaner and greener?

The obvious answer is that it all saves money. Energy efficiency equals cost efficiency, says John Whetstone, UK business development manager of Italian-based Green Engineering, which specializes in design and construction of distilleries. And, he adds, fear of energy shortages in the not-too-distant future is an added incentive for distilleries to become as self-sufficient as possible.

But to attribute the huge level of activity in the industry in recent years purely to self-interest is too cynical. Scottish Whisky Association spokeswoman Rosemary Gallagher says: “Scotch whisky industry is synonymous with the pristine Scottish environment. Few products are as closely associated with their environment as Scotch. Distillers rely on nature for their raw materials, so sustainability is a priority.”

John Whetstone, as an independent observer of the industry, agrees that altruism plays its part in its focus on environmental concerns. “Perhaps because so many distilleries are in such stunning locations, perhaps because tourism is such an important part of the business, the Scotch whisky industry is much more environmentally conscious than many others,” he says.

“Up to about 10 years ago, climate change was a fringe issue,” he added. “That’s changed. There’s a genuine willingness on the part of the political establishment and the industry to co-operate in promoting measures to increase energy efficiency and reduce waste, and the issue is now absolutely central.”

Paradoxically, though, while the big corporations have made great environmental strides, the new wave of small artisanal distillers find themselves lagging behind. The reason is simple: cost.

“We do what we can to reuse materials. Our draff goes to wild boar on a nearby farm and our pot ale is spread on the fields,” says David Lang of Scotland’s newest and smallest distillery, Strathearn. “But a big distillery can spend £400,000 to recover heat loss, and even if it’s only 10 percent effective, they’ll still save a million, while a small company like ours might only be losing £2,000 to £4,000 [on heat loss] and the heat loss equipment wouldn’t save us anything.”

“We looked at geothermal heat pumps and biomass CHP, but it’s all very capital-intensive,” he continued. “The long and the short of it is that you have to be a medium-sized distillery for this kind of equipment to be viable. Our kerosene boiler cost £28,000. The equivalent biomass CHP would have cost £140,000. We even looked at domestic woodchip furnaces, but they just don’t generate enough heat.”

It’s early days, though. If the history of the microbrewing boom is any precedent, then given time, the industry’s engineering suppliers will realise that there’s a market for scaled-down models of their equipment that artisan distilleries can afford, and every dram you raise will be truly green.

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