Environment

We have set ourselves stretching targets to reduce our impacts on the environment, for the benefit of the planet, our communities and our business. Being less dependent on finite resources such as fossil fuels and fresh water (especially in areas where it is scarce) supports the long-term prosperity of our business. There are a number of steps in this journey to environmental sustainability - using energy and water more efficiently, switching to resources that are naturally replenished, and, by finding ways to re-use or recycle our by-products, eliminating waste that may damage the environment.

'Our vision is that some day all Diageo brands will be sourced sustainably, produced sustainably, delivered to the customer and consumer sustainably in packaging that has the smallest environmental footprint, and that all Diageo employees will work in sustainable buildings.' Roberta Barbieri, Diageo global environmental project manager.

Between 2002 and 2008, we significantly improved the efficiency of our use of natural resources: we are 14% more energy efficient, 16% more water efficiency and 22% more carbon efficient.

Environmental impacts in the value chain

A consumer in Japan relaxes with a glass of Scotch whisky - a common enough occurrence, repeated millions of times a day in bars and homes across the world. It's part of a chain of events which began in a Scottish barley field some years before and which, ideally, will end when the empty bottle is collected for recycling. The environment is affected by the activities that take place at all the stages along this chain - all the cereal farms, bottle and box factories, distilleries, maturation warehouses, bottling and packing plants, ships, trains and trucks, and finally bars and stores. We work to reduce such impacts, by continuously refining our own operations and by aiming to influence the activities of other businesses in the chain.

An important part of this is to characterise the impacts. So, in 2007 we quantified the 'environmental footprint' of our most successful Scotch whisky brand, Johnnie Walker, assessing its impacts and finding where they occur in the chain 'from barley field to bottle bank'. Findings such as these on our operations as a whole may be used in future to help us inform our engagement with suppliers and customers and to prioritise environmental improvements.

Johnnie Walker is the world's leading Scotch whisky and comes in a number of variants - most importantly Red, Black, Green, Gold and Blue Label - all of them covered by the study. Each variant is a blend of matured whiskies which are fermented and distilled from predominantly Scottish cereals. After blending, the finished product is bottled and cased - in financial year 2009, output was 14.4 million equivalent units (equal to a nine-litre case) - and shipped to more than 180 countries.

For simplicity, in the diagram above, we split the Johnnie Walker value chain into four stages. The bar charts quantify major environmental impacts at the four stages.