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CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility is a major focus in Pernod Ricard's constant quest for improvement. The Group has risen to the challenge of reconciling financial efficiency, respect for stakeholders, environmental protection, consumer protection and cultural awareness.

Eco-design

Aware that it is partly responsible for the disposal of its products’ packaging waste, Pernod Ricard has made eco-design a key feature of its environmental policy, successfully experimenting with new methods.

Eco-design

ECO-DESIGN A KEY PRIORITY

Pernod Ricard encourages its subsidiaries to adopt eco-design principles to reduce the weight of packaging and facilitate its collection and recycling.
This eco-design approach is effective at an environmental and economic level, and meets commercial and marketing requirements.
The aim of the eco-design programme is to:
  • Optimise packaging and containers for transport;
  • Develop a method of analysing the packaging life cycle to measure the impact on the environment;
  • Develop recyclable packaging using recycled material;
  • Reduce the impact of storing and transporting packed goods.

FIRMER ACTION

In 2007, Pernod Ricard decided to step up its eco-design innovation process in a variety of ways:
  • Setting up a taskforce with employees from marketing, procurement and logistics working alongside suppliers. Its goal is to make recommendations and formalise good practices and resources. Its main topics of discussion include: the relationship between premiumisation and eco-design, staff training and communications with consumers.
  • Providing eco-design training for teams concerned, in particular procurement and marketing. establishing a “Closer to the customer” indicator for Ricard’s procurement to optimise sourcing of packaging according to actual needs, for example.
  • Publishing an eco-design guide.
  • Installing software to analyse the life cycle of packaging: to promote eco-design internally, the Group introduced a packaging life cycle analysis software programme at 12 of its subsidiaries in 2011. This application can be used to assess the environmental impact of product packaging all along the production chain. It is intended to help with decision-making when packaging is designed.

VARIOUS LOCAL INITIATIVES

Subsidiaries have continued to implement eco-design principles. Pernod Ricard Nordic has been innovative in replacing glass bottles used for some of its local products with recyclable plastic (PET). Pernod Ricard Americas has also reviewed the shape of, and sometimes material used in, its bottles to optimise storage and transport.
A few examples: in the United States, the Mumm Napa bottle has gone from 907 to 794 grams. In Mexico, the Kahlúa bottle has lost 10% of its weight. In Argentina, Brazil and Canada, several types of bottle have been lightened considerably: Montilla (-5%), Orloff (-11%) and Malibu (PET).

Good practice: Orlando Wines saves 9,600 tonnes of glass in Australia

In one of the biggest packaging optimisation achievements, Orlando Wines – working in direct collaboration with Pernod Ricard UK – developed a lighter bottle for its Jacob’s Creek brand, the glass of which accounts for 30% of CO2 emissions and a significant proportion of production waste.

This innovation saved 9,600 tonnes of glass, significantly reduced the number of containers and volume of storage used, and cut the number of lorries needed for transport, decreasing CO2 emissions by around 10,000 tonnes per year.

Find out more about the Jacob’s Creek’s environmental policy on the website