As concern for the environment grows, beverage alcohol brands are increasingly adopting sustainable practices, but many feel like they could be doing more to make a positive contribution. At Bar Convent Berlin, Tim Etherington-Judge, Co-Founder and Chief Sustainability Officer at Avallen Spirits touched on the urgency of shifting to a sustainable model. He discussed some ways that businesses can take immediate action, from reducing single-use plastics to moving their money into banks that support investment in renewable energy.
In 2020, 70 billion single-use wine and spirits bottles were consumed globally. Zdenek Kastanek, International Sales Director at ecoSpirits, made the case that reducing single-use glass can benefit the beverage alcohol industry as a whole. Kastanek touched on the costliness of the spirits supply chain, the carbon created by single-use glass, and how the ecoSpirits business model aims to address both of these issues.
Another place beverage alcohol brands can begin a shift to a more sustainable business model is with their ingredients. Patrik Drobny, CEO of BITE – The Culinary Beverage Brand, discussed the importance of responsibly sourcing ingredients and using them to their full potential. Drobny also touched on the three pillars of sustainability: economical, environmental, and social.
The Necessity of Adopting a Sustainable Business Model
Tim Etherington-Judge (00:09)
My name is Tim, co-founder of Avallen Spirits. Earth is our only home—moving to Mars isn’t realistic, so we need to look after the planet we have. Currently, key climate metrics are moving in the wrong direction: carbon emissions, methane, nitrogen dioxide, temperatures, and sea levels are rising, while oxygen levels and biodiversity are dropping at an unprecedented rate. We must ask ourselves what kind of future we want for our home: a desolate wasteland of depleted resources, or a harmonious eco-tech paradise where high technology lives in balance with nature.
Tim Etherington-Judge (02:07)
The most critical constraint we face is time. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we must reduce global carbon emissions by half by 2030 to avoid catastrophic climate change. This isn’t just about warmer weather; it means the potential breakdown of global food, transportation, and energy systems. Governments setting Net Zero targets for 2050 is too late—we must take immediate action across every operational scale:
- Immediate Operational Changes: Switch to sustainable straws, cut air travel, commute by bicycle, choose renewable energy suppliers, and reuse ingredients.
- Adopt Closed-Loop Systems: Implement ecoSPIRITS bulk systems or sustainable spirit lines behind the bar.
- Collaborate and Share Knowledge: Sustainability is a collective responsibility without commercial competition; ask for help and share solutions openly across the trade.
Tim Etherington-Judge (04:24)
As Patrik Drobny mentioned, money moves the world—so do not waste your capital funding environmental destruction. One of the single most impactful, cost-free actions an individual or business owner can take tomorrow is auditing their bank. Under fractional reserve banking, banks hold only 10% of deposited cash and lend out the remaining 90%. The majority of traditional High Street banks (such as Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, or Santander) deploy those deposits to fund fossil fuel projects and carbon-intensive industries.
Tim Etherington-Judge (05:51)
Moving your accounts away from traditional High Street institutions cuts off capital to fossil fuel projects:
- Audit Your Bank: Use resources like Bank.green to check the environmental performance of financial institutions in your country.
- Reallocate Capital: Move deposits to green banks that actively fund renewable energy, community projects, and environmentally focused small-to-medium enterprises.
Tim Etherington-Judge (07:05)
Finally, do not waste the opportunity to build resilient, sustainable, and profitable businesses that serve both people and the planet.Hospitality is fundamentally a people-centric business. Guests enter venues seeking meaningful social experiences. Operators can support both environmental and human sustainability by:
- Upcycling Ingredients: Reusing bar ingredients cuts food waste and lowers beverage cost of goods, mitigating rising energy and operational costs.
- Supporting Frontline People: Prioritizing staff well-being improves recruitment and retention during an industry-wide staffing crisis.
Tim Etherington-Judge (09:41)
Employees actively seek out sustainable, responsible employers where they can take pride in their daily work. Do not waste the opportunity to build an amazing, sustainable business that benefits both the planet and your team. At Avallen Spirits, our mission is crafting planet-positive Calvados from Normandy apples. As a certified B Corp and 1% for the Planet member, our production is climate-positive—each standard bottle removes 2.73 kg of CO2e from the atmosphere, while our ecoTOTE distribution removes 19.9 kg of CO2e per container. Thank you!
How Reducing Single Use Packaging Can Benefit Beverage Alcohol
Zdenek Kastanek (00:09)
I have been in the hospitality industry for over 20 years—starting as a chef in culinary school, working across bars and hotels on four continents, and spending the last decade in Asia, primarily Singapore and Hong Kong. There, we developed new distribution technology to address physical packaging waste in our industry. The wine, spirits, and hospitality trade is a traditional industry often slow to adopt structural change. Driving dramatic reduction in actual packaging waste requires strategic planning, clear incentives, and collaborative effort across the entire supply chain.
Zdenek Kastanek (01:33)
Globally, the wine and spirits industry consumes 70 billion single-use glass bottles every year. To visualize that scale, 70 billion glass bottles equals 7 million shipping containers dedicated strictly to single-use wine and spirits packaging annually. While many assume glass is widely recycled, the operational reality is flawed:
- Low Recycling Rates: In the US, for instance, only about 30% of glass is actually recycled.
- Limited Reuse Cycles: Central European markets (like Germany) utilize refillable glass bottles, but unarmored glass degrades, chips, or breaks after just three to four wash cycles.
- Carbon-Intensive Recycling: Melting glass down requires heating furnaces to 1,300°C (2,370°F) using massive energy, while label removal requires significant water usage. Due to these energy-intensive steps and the logistics of hauling heavy glass, recycling glass generates over 50% more carbon emissions than manufacturing a brand-new bottle from scratch.
Zdenek Kastanek (07:24)
When examining a spirit bottle’s lifecycle—from raw distillation in places like Mexico, France, or Kentucky through global transport to a bar—shipping and single-use packaging generate the vast majority of the carbon footprint. While major global producers and craft distillers have successfully cut distillery-level emissions (such as capturing fermentation heat), agricultural production and distillation account for only about 10% of a spirit’s total carbon footprint. The remaining 80% to 90% of emissions stems directly from single-use glass packaging and global distribution logistics.
Zdenek Kastanek (09:29)
Sustainable operations do not have to compromise business productivity or profitability. For high-volume producers, single-use glass packaging and long-distance shipping frequently cost more than the raw liquid inside the bottle. Through ecoSPIRITS, we pioneered a low-waste, low-carbon distribution technology. Instead of shipping single-use glass, liquid is shipped in bulk containers and repacked locally into reusable glass vessels called ecoTOTE containers. These vessels are delivered directly to bartenders, washed, and reused repeatedly. This unbundled distribution model eliminates single-use glass waste while lowering unit costs for venue operators.
Zdenek Kastanek (11:46)
As an example of operational impact, we partnered with the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, famous for its Singapore Sling. The bar serves an average of 1,200 Singapore Slings every day, drawing high-volume tour groups from major cruise lines. By transitioning their high-volume ingredients into closed-loop bulk packaging—and working with partners like Luxardo to ship cherries in 5-kilogram aluminum tins rather than small glass jars—we eliminated 40,000 single-use glass bottles per year from a single bar in one hotel, maintaining exact liquid quality while drastically cutting operational waste. Thank you!
Reducing Waste Behind the Bar
Patrik Drobny (00:12)
At BITE, our core purpose is inspiring professionals to serve better beverage and culinary experiences. To us, a “better beverage” means driving daily improvements in sustainability while signaling to the market that bartenders, restaurateurs, and cafe owners demand sustainable options. Beyond standard bottled beverages, we elevate drinks into crafted culinary experiences that stand alongside food. Every ingredient we develop is created in direct collaboration with leading bartenders and restaurants in Copenhagen, evaluating flavor development across three pillars: sustainability for the planet, viability for the business, and an elevated culinary experience for the guest.
Patrik Drobny (01:42)
“Increasing productivity through waste reduction” simply means: How do we increase profitability without harming the planet or its people? True sustainability requires balancing three essential dimensions:
- Social Sustainability: Ensuring supply chain workers are treated fairly and earn a living wage so they can focus beyond basic survival.
- Environmental Sustainability: Evaluating packaging choices, transportation logistics, and waste disposal methods.
- Economic Sustainability: Ensuring fair ingredient pricing, capturing full partnership value, and utilizing every raw material completely.
When independent venues make conscious purchasing choices, that collective buying power signals major multinational beverage corporations to alter their practices.
Patrik Drobny (05:08)
Many venues purchase pre-made syrups, shrubs, or mixers, while others craft house-made ingredients. However, inefficiency occurs on both ends when specialty ingredients are used for only a single cocktail on a menu. Additionally, when bars make lemonades, iced teas, or sodas, they often fail to incorporate those house-made bases across their cocktail programs—missing out on cross-category efficiency and volume purchasing power with suppliers. When venues communicate their needs directly to suppliers, it creates demand that drives production innovation. Suppliers are often the last link in the value chain to change, but user demand accelerates that transformation.
Patrik Drobny (07:48)
Standard single-use beverage packaging is highly inefficient. For example, a standard 24-pack case of pre-bottled soda or mixer represents 3.8 kg of single-use clear glass and 4.0 kg of transported water—totaling 7.8 kg of shipped material to deliver just 720 grams of actual flavor syrup or cordial. Consequently, 92% of a standard mixer case is single-use packaging and water—resources that can be easily sourced locally. Venues pay a high premium for glass logistics and transported water, which increases waste and limits operational profitability.
Patrik Drobny (09:04)
To eliminate internal waste at our Copenhagen production facility, we partner with local chefs and bakeries to convert manufacturing byproducts into high-value culinary ingredients:
- Citrus Peels: Extracted lemon peels are infused into vinegar to capture residual volatile oils for cocktail sprays and kitchen dressings. Additionally, spent citrus peels are processed into lemon curd and candied citrus paste, which are supplied to 30 local Copenhagen bakeries for use in Danish pastries and panettone.
- Berry Mash: Pressing strawberries and raspberries yields juice for syrups. We repurpose the remaining berry pulp into fruit jams, generating several tons of upcycled berry jam for commercial bakeries.
Patrik Drobny (12:54)
We apply upcycling principles across all remaining ingredient lines:
- Herbs & Botanicals: After extracting botanicals (such as juniper and Artemisia absinthium) for our organic, alcohol-free aperitivo spirit, the spent botanical solids undergo controlled fermentation to produce an organic zero-waste kombucha.
- Dehydrated Garnishes & Powders: Remaining botanical materials are dried into concentrated flavoring sprays, or ground into natural food coloring powders (such as vibrant hibiscus powder) used by venue kitchens to garnish plates.
By turning waste streams into high-value culinary ingredients, venues reduce environmental impact while building a more profitable, responsible operation. Thank you very much!