Company:  Suntory Global Spirits

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Welcome to our series aimed at spotlighting the individual leaders within BIER member companies and stakeholder organizations. Learn how these practitioners and their companies are addressing pressing challenges around water, energy, agriculture, climate change, and what inspires each of them to advance environmental sustainability in the beverage sector and collectively, overall.

Briefly describe your role and responsibilities and how long you have worked with your company.
I joined Suntory Global Spirits in 2022 to help drive the company’s Nature Positive pillar as part of its enterprise-wide Proof Positive sustainability strategy, with my role focused on leading many of our climate initiatives. Since then, my scope has evolved to drive both our Climate and Water pillars, helping drive efficiency, reduce emissions and water usage rates across our operations, as well as engaging with our manufacturing teams to create risk profiles for watershed risk, develop emissions reduction, water reduction, watershed replenishment roadmaps & projects, and drive reporting across global direct operations.

In my current role, my primary focus is on Scopes 1 & 2 and water reduction & replenishment, collaborating with our operations sites to improve reporting, develop net zero roadmaps, and identify energy and water reduction opportunities. While these sites implement their own strategies, our sustainability team collaborates with our engineering, procurement, and R&D teams centrally to create tools and training, leverage best practices, and vet new technology.

How has the company’s sustainability program evolved over the years, and what are your specific priorities for 2024?

I would say our program is quite young compared to others in the beverage industry.

Prior to joining Suntory Global Spirits, Rick Price, Senior Director of Global Sustainability, was leading the sustainability charge, gaining momentum and advocating support for the vision for what would become the company’s sustainability program. When I joined the company, Kim Marotta had just stepped into the role of Global Vice President of Environmental Sustainability to lead the Nature+ pillar of our Proof Positive strategy. Since then, we’ve established a team that serves as a center of excellence, driving initiatives designed to preserve our natural resources, reducing our water, climate, forest & field, and packaging footprints. Together, we outlined each goal’s long-term roadmap, investment approach and capability gaps, and are now working alongside our global teams to drive progress.

Our team is continuing to refine our net zero roadmaps, and identifying the reporting standards, needs, budgets and activities that we need to be successful long-term. This has been a shift for our business and our teams on several levels, whether it’s culturally or financially speaking, however, we are continuing to build awareness and engagement across the organization. With the momentum we’ve gained, I think there is still a lot more we need to do, particularly within our procurement and Scope 3 with our supplier partners. For us, that means asking the right questions and gaining insights for how we integrate our sustainability goals into our operations, engineering processes, and long-term business plans.

As we move forward, these conversations around how we build a roadmap for reducing emissions will be key. As I mentioned, this is a cultural shift, and requires considerable collaboration from our teams in order to build the tools and assets that will help change the conversation from a dialogue about numbers to a narrative that reinforces the business need so we can integrate sustainability into long-term business plans.

How do you feel being a BIER member will help you successfully address the key areas you are addressing in 2024?

BIER has successfully created an environment that is collaborative, non-competitive, and fosters surprisingly open and transparent conversations with its member companies. I personally appreciate members being willing and candid in sharing what they are working on, challenges they’re facing, and approaches they’re taking to address issues we’re facing collectively as an industry. This level of collaboration and best-practice sharing supports us all in aligning on definitions, sharing ideas across reporting and targets, and has helped us make quicker advances within our own leadership, operations and procurement.

In 2024, we have outlined specific goals for reducing our emissions and our water usage, as well as KPIs that support and drive our long-term commitments across our climate, water, forest & field and packaging pillars. Two areas that I’m most excited about is the work we’re doing with regards to our watershed replenishment and biodiversity goals. This year, one of my focus areas will be implementing and executing watershed replenishment projects across our high-risk watersheds in India, Mexico and Spain, where we are collaborating with other stakeholders to develop a roadmap that will guide future investments in these areas. Our primary focus will be on nature-based solutions that ensure the sustainability of water resources in these high-risk watersheds. I’m looking forward to that!

Name one of the practical solutions or best practices you learned in working with BIER and its members and why it was important to you and/ or your company.

For me, two of the most valuable resources has been BIER’s 2021 Water Stewardship Definition and 2015 True Cost Of Water Toolkit. As we’re still early on our journey, I’ve found that being able to consistently reference these resources has given me and our team confidence to know that we’re moving forward in the right direction and aligned with the industry in our approach.

This year, I anticipate BIER’s work related to the alignment on the intense and complicated reporting requirements that’s coming out internationally will be of value.

Share a recent accomplishment of your company’s sustainability initiatives/achievements you are most proud of and why.

As part of our Proof Positive sustainability strategy, Suntory Global Spirits has a long-term commitment to plant more trees than harvested to make our new barrels by 2030. In 2023, our teams, lead by Kyle Day and the Forest Positive team, planted 8,000 trees on reclaimed mine land in Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains. This was the second year of partnership between Suntory Global Spirits, The Nature Conservancy, and Green Forest Works, supporting long-term climate resiliency by transforming and protecting one of the most critical habitats and migratory paths in the United States. I was particularly proud of our efforts to help restore the land for future use for the surrounding underserved community.

It was inspiring to see the impact we had in two short days and see our team walk away from the event engaged and energized.. not to mention exhausted. Yet, it was also fun! This event has become one of my favorite activities that I get to participate in and support every year.

If you had one superpower that could be used to radically accelerate and scale sustainable best practices, which one would it be, and how would you use it?

If I had a sustainability superpower, it would be “mind change” – not to be confused with mind control. I would use my powers to inform and change people’s minds when it comes to sustainability and help them understand that sustainability isn’t just a liberal cause, it’s good business and it impacts all of us. It’s going to take everyone committing to investing the time and resources – and partnering with others – to create solutions that support the betterment of society and the continued transformation of our business. To bring everyone along on this journey, I would want to this power to help depoliticize and promote awareness of our goals because ultimately, it’s about how we combat climate change and make a better world for everyone. I think this kind of power would have meaningful and lasting impacts and help align us around a common goal and shared purpose – creating a more sustainable, equitable future for all.

BIER Publications referenced in this interview:
BIER’S 2021 WATER STEWARDSHIP DEFINITION
BIER’S 2015 TRUE COST OF WATER TOOLKIT