Day two reinforced that environmental challenges do not sit neatly in silos.
Discussions on water security highlighted the direct link between catchment-level stewardship and long-term business resilience. Members explored the trade-offs involved in managing water-related risks while maintaining growth and community trust, a balance that requires both technical understanding and practical decision-making.
On climate, the focus turned to the forthcoming updates to the SBTi Net-Zero Standard (V2.0) and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s land-sector guidance. These frameworks are actively shaping how companies measure, manage, and communicate emissions across increasingly complex value chains.
At the same time, regulatory developments, from the CSRD Omnibus to UK Sustainability Reporting Standards and California Climate Rules, underscored the importance of shared interpretation and alignment. In a rapidly evolving landscape, clarity is built through dialogue.
Emerging from these sessions was a shift from information-sharing to coordination, including refining how ideas are proposed, prioritized, and advanced to enable collective initiatives to scale effectively across the membership.
Leadership That Reflects the Moment
This year’s Roundtable also reflected the leadership guiding BIER into its next chapter.
We were pleased to welcome David Grant of PepsiCo and Harriet Cullum of Diageo as BIER’s 2026 Steering Committee Chair and Co-Chair, respectively.
David Grant steps into the role of Chair with a steady, pragmatic lens shaped by deep experience across BIER and the broader beverage sector. His focus on accountability, prioritization, and translating intention into measurable outcomes has already strengthened the organization’s approach to collective work.
Along with him, Harriet brings a systems-level perspective across water, agriculture, nature, and ESG performance, grounded in both corporate and not-for-profit experience. Her emphasis on data, transparency, and communication aligns closely with BIER’s approach and the increasing need to translate complexity into action.
Together, their leadership reflects clarity, discipline, and a continued commitment to meaningful collaboration.
From Roundtable to Resources: How the Work Moves Forward
The Roundtables, alongside BIER’s workstreams, are where shared challenges are surfaced, debated, and refined, and where the foundation is built for the tools and resources that support the broader membership.
From GHG guidance to water stewardship frameworks, benchmarking studies, and playbooks, BIER’s resources are shaped by the conversations and insights that emerge through this collective process.
This is how progress scales:
- Dialogue becomes alignment
- Alignment becomes guidance
- Guidance becomes action
And over time, that action becomes a measurable improvement across the sector.
20 Years of Collaboration — and What Comes Next
Established in 2006, BIER has spent two decades bringing globally recognized beverage companies together to improve environmental performance across water, climate, reporting, circularity, and nature.
What has remained consistent is the belief that no single company can solve these challenges alone.
The Spring 2026 Roundtable was a clear reflection of that; not just in the topics discussed, but in the willingness to engage, question, and move forward together.
As BIER enters its next chapter, the path ahead is not about more conversation for its own sake. It is about continuing to translate shared expertise into practical, science-based solutions that deliver real impact.
The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) is a technical coalition of leading global beverage companies working together to advance environmental sustainability within the beverage sector.