Beverage industry leaders from across the globe convened May 17-19, 2016 for the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) semi-annual meeting. Diageo hosted the event in Edinburgh, Scotland. The three-day agenda focused on BIER’s current work to address climate change, mitigate environmental impacts and ensure sustainable growth of the beverage sector.
“We were pleased to welcome our colleagues from the world’s leading beverage companies,” said Roberta Barbieri, Global Environmental Sustainability Manager, Diageo. “BIER provides an invaluable outlet for the global beverage industry to meet, share best practices, and tackle the environmental issues that all member organizations are facing and we are pleased to be part of that.”
Meeting topics included discussions around energy and climate change, best practice sharing, transparency and disclosure, water sustainability, and future scenarios. A best practices workshop was held on Identifying Barriers to Scalability, and working groups met on various topics to tackle in-progress work streams, drive decisions for the path forward, and launch BIER’s 10th year of operation.
Meeting attendees also received a tour of Diageo’s Glenkinchie Distillery and enjoyed a Diageo hosted Scotch Whisky Experience.
Through the collective experience and knowledge of its membership, BIER collaborates to define the environmental sustainability aspects most relevant to the beverage sector. By doing so, BIER is able to monitor data and trends, engage with key stakeholders, develop best practices and guide a course of action for the future. Current BIER initiatives include defining context-based metrics for water use, developing energy assessment tools to help prioritize and mitigate climate change impacts, and establishing guiding principles around ecosystem dependencies and biodiversity conservation measures across the beverage product value chain.
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.
By BIER [crp]