Whisky makers spend £100m on green drive

Published Date: 04 June 2009

SCOTTISH whisky distillers yesterday pledged to invest £100 million in environmental initiatives in a bid to achieve an 80 per cent cut in the use of fossil fuels by 2050.
The Scotch Whisky Association estimated the effect of the new strategy – which took two years to produce – will be equivalent to taking 235,000 cars off the road. "This strategy makes good environmental and good business sense," said David Rae, managing director of the North British Distillery Company. Other targets of the industry's environment plan include reducing the weight of packaging and ending the practice of sending packaging waste to landfill. The industry also aims to source whisky casks only from sustainable oak forests. It will publish its achievements annually to track its progress.Launched in Edinburgh yesterday, the strategy attracted support from environment groups and politicians.Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland said: "Scotch whisky is world renowned and we welcome plans to reduce the environmental footprint of each and every dram. "We particularly welcome the fact that they have set themselves targets to reduce their impact."