The Secret Garden Distillery has always had green credentials and now through the passion of Imogen Armstrong, one of our new Directors, the Distillery has committed to the following goals:
- To achieve Net Zero no later than 2035 and target a 50% reduction in net annual emissions by 2030 but are working towards achieving those targets by 2030 and 2026 respectively.
- To set realistic short- and long-term targets designed to achieve these commitments.
- To report the total Greenhouse Gas emissions of our business, at a minimum, on an annual basis no less than 6 months after the end of the financial year on 31st
These commitments are in line with Scotland’s Net Zero strategy.
Up until now the Distillery has focused on more sustainable packaging, ecological practices in the management of it's Garden but has just published it’s first Carbon Emissions Report for 2024 effectively establishing the benchmark on which the targets can be based. The report was produced in association with the Midlothian Council through their partnership with Net Zero Nation designed to help SME’s achieve Net Zero.
The Secret Garden Distillery located at the foot of the Pentland Hills, just outside Edinburgh is hope to a 7-acre garden growing the botanicals that have inspired the creation of our gins taking our customers on a journey from “seed to sip”.
The Garden is home to 600 different varieties of plants where everything is grown naturally with no chemicals, pesticides or herbicides using peat-free regenerative compost. The botanicals are hand-harvested to prevent the break-up of the soil when using machinery and to encourage our ecosystem and wildlife to thrive, we leave our percentage of all our plants in ground. We mitigate the environmental impact of our energy-intensive operations by using multi-shot distilling techniques of concentrated gin that we can dilute into multiple batches thus creating more volume on fewer still runs. We are also investing in green energy and progressing towards carbon negative emissions.
Our packaging and labels are made with 30% grass and 70% virgin pulp. This material is manufactured without the use of chemicals requiring 97% less energy and 99% less water compared to normal label production. We use biodegradable viscose shrink bands to seal the bottles and all our shipping materials consist only of paper which is completely recyclable. On top of that we aim to lower our impact on our air by limiting transportation in the supply chain to local/national suppliers.
It's also important to make and encourage small individual changes to our company’s commuting behaviour so we encourage car-pooling, walking, cycling and public transport. 41% of our full-time employees travel to and from work in one of these environmentally conscious ways.
Our benchmark year has calculated total emissions for the business at 36.4 tCO2e broken down as follows:
Like many companies measuring their emissions at the moment, our Scope 3 emissions may increase in future years as more detailed data and information is measured and becomes available especially in Scope 3 activities such as purchased goods and services.
One of our biggest projects for 2024 has been introducing new glass bottles for our gins. In summary we chose a UK supplier for the glass who are committed to their own carbon reduction goals. The key achievements for reducing our carbon footprint with this new glass can be summarised thus:
From sustainable gardening to sourcing eco-friendly packaging we are committed to minimizing our impact on the planet. Our goal is not only to create fantastic spirits but also to make a positive difference in this world we call home.
To look at the Carbon Emissions Report 2023 in detail please click here.
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