Getting Your House in Order: Tackling Your Direct Emissions (Scopes 1 & 2)
In the last article, I attempted to demystified the terminology of decarbonisation, breaking down what Scopes 1, 2, and 3 mean for a drinks business. For most of us, the largest portion of our carbon footprint (often 80-90%+) is hidden in our Scope 3 value chain – in agriculture, our packaging, and logistics.
While tackling Scope 3 is the ultimate challenge (which we will discuss in our next piece), the foundational first step on any credible Net Zero journey is to get your own house in order. This means decisively addressing the emissions you have the most direct control over: your Scope 1 and Scope 2 footprint. These are the emissions generated within your own facilities and from your purchased energy. Let's explore the practical strategies to do just that.
Bonus point if you can name this distillery!
Tackling Scope 2: The Quickest Wins in Purchased Energy
Your Scope 2 emissions come from the electricity, heat, or steam you purchase (because you burn gas on-site, it’s considered Scope 1). For most drinks businesses, this is primarily electricity. Fortunately, this is often the most straightforward area to decarbonise.
1. Switch to a Renewable Electricity Tariff: The simplest and fastest way to eliminate your market-based Scope 2 emissions is to switch your energy supplier to a 100% renewable electricity tariff. In the UK, these tariffs are backed by REGOs (Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin), which certify that for every unit of electricity you use, a corresponding unit has been generated from a renewable source (like wind, solar, or hydro). It’s a powerful first step.
2. Invest in On-site Generation: To go a step further and build long-term energy resilience, consider generating your own renewable electricity. The large, flat roofs on many breweries, wineries, and warehouses are often perfect for installing solar panels. This not only reduces your reliance on the grid and cuts your carbon footprint but can also lead to significant long-term cost savings (solar is now the cheapest form of electricity generation) and provide energy security against volatile prices.
3. Prioritise Energy Efficiency: The greenest, cheapest energy is the energy you don't use in the first place. Before investing in renewables, a thorough energy efficiency audit can yield huge benefits. For a drinks facility, this includes:
Installing high-efficiency motors and pumps, often with variable speed drives.
Properly insulating buildings, pipes, and hot tanks to prevent heat loss.
Switching to high-efficiency LED lighting.
You could even get creative and rent out space to bitcoin miners and use the waste heat they generate for your heating needs.
Tackling Scope 1: The Direct Challenge of On-site Fuel
Your Scope 1 emissions are generated directly from your own assets. For most drinks producers, the biggest source is the on-site combustion of fuel (like natural gas or oil) in boilers to create the heat and steam essential for brewing and distillation. This makes it a more complex challenge to decarbonise.
1. Fuel Switching: A medium-term strategy involves switching from higher-carbon fuels to lower-carbon alternatives. This could mean moving from heating oil to natural gas (a transition fuel, not a final solution) or exploring options like sustainably sourced biofuels or biomethane where available.
2. Electrification of Heat: The long-term strategic solution is to move away from combustion altogether by electrifying your heating processes. This involves replacing fossil fuel-powered boilers with technologies like industrial-scale heat pumps or electric boilers. Crucially, this strategy is only effective if your electricity supply is renewable (as addressed in Scope 2). While the capital cost can be high and the technology for achieving the very high temperatures needed for some forms of distillation is still maturing, this is the clear direction of travel for decarbonising process heat.
3. Explore Process Innovation: New technologies are emerging that can drastically reduce the energy needed for production. For distillation, techniques like Mechanical Vapour Recompression (MVR) can recapture and reuse the heat from condensation, cutting energy demand by over 75% in some cases. Chivas Brothers, part of the Pernod Ricard group, have recently open sourced all of their MVR and TVR technology in a move to accelerate the move towards net zero by our industry - https://www.chivasbrothers.com/sustainability/open-source/
Don't Forget Other Scope 1 Sources:
Company Vehicles: Systematically transitioning your company-owned fleet (vans, cars) to electric vehicles (EVs).
Refrigerant Gases (F-Gases): Implementing a robust maintenance schedule to prevent leaks from cooling systems and transitioning to refrigerants with a lower Global Warming Potential (GWP).
The Foundation for Credible Climate Action
Addressing your Scope 1 and 2 emissions is the foundational act of getting your own house in order. It demonstrates a tangible commitment to decarbonisation, delivers real cost and energy savings, and builds the credibility needed to then tackle the greater challenge of your value chain.
Having looked at our direct operations, the next step on our path is the largest and most complex. In our next article, we will dive into the elephant in the room: strategies for measuring and reducing your Scope 3 emissions.
