SUSTAINABILITY

“Sustainability has to be a way of life to be a way of business.”

Anand Mahindra

Downton Distillery prides itself on its heritage, authenticity and the quality of what we do. The distillery follows artisanal traditions shared across the industry. Our products are free of artiﬁcial, synthetic additives nor do we use preservatives or flavouring extracts. All our spirits are made by our own hands, whilst we ethically source our ingredients using local when possible.

Products made by our partners have also been ethically sourced with reviews conducted on how the products have been made ensuring no child or forced labour has taken place within the supply chain.

Our goal is to make the business sustainable and where it can give back to the community. We strive to put customers and people into the heart of everything we do, through sustainable practices.

OUR OBJECTIVES

Downton Distillery is working towards becoming a 'Certified B Corporation'. These are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. B Corps are accelerating a global culture shift to redefine success in business and build a more inclusive and sustainable economy.

Society’s most challenging problems cannot be solved by government and nonprofits alone. The B Corp community works toward reduced inequality, lower levels of poverty, a healthier environment, stronger communities, and the creation of more high quality jobs with dignity and purpose. By harnessing the power of business, B Corps use profits and growth as a means to a greater end: positive impact for their employees, communities, and the environment.

Objectives that we are taking steps in achieving:

Responsible consumption and production.
Use environmentally friendly materials.
Sustainable development goals.
Use recyclable packaging.
Reducing water wastage.
Responsible sourcing.
Energy efficient.
Reduce waste (bottles, materials, bi-products, packaging).

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

We believe it is our social and moral duty to have a positive impact on the environment. We improve people’s lives through supporting both local and national charities. Recycling where possible and donating to worthy causes. We actively engage and support our team to participate in regular volunteer activities that align with our goals and values.

SUSTAINABILITY

It is important that we understand the circular economy and how we can make the greatest impact moving towards zero waste. This economy’s focus is on designing out waste and pollution, keeping products in use for as long as possible and regenerating natural systems. We aim to reduce waste by ensuring our bottles can be reused time and time again or naturally recycled back into the supply chain.

We will be working with customers to see where we can add refill points, therefore allowing you to keep your bottles with the ability to both refill them and at a lower price point this will include the distillery soon.

Whilst we source our neutral Grain spirit to prevent waste, we buy small and produce only to supply demand. Our spent botanicals are then recycled into the compost for the vegetable patch. We have zero waste within our distilling practices.

OUR GLASSWARE

Our bottles are made by Erben Bruni, an Italian glass manufacturer known for the quality of their glassware and their own desire to become a sustainability leader. The bottle we use is a stock bottle, so these bottles have already been created, we are not having to use new resources or power in the creation of our bottles.

Our screen-printed bottles are completely free of toxic heavy metals that are often used nor are any dangerous solvents used in the glass printing process.

At present our shrink wrap capsules use PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and this is recyclable. This can be crushed and shredded into small flakes which can then be reused to make new PET bottles or spun into polyester fibres. These will be phased out for the more environmentally friendly polylactic acid capsules which are compostable, aligning our goals in creating a better environment and greener world.

Our stopper uses a synthetic recyclable cork at present. A decision was made to use this type for a couple of reasons. The first is that cork trees are under their own environmental strains. Whilst the cork tree suffers from few major disease problems, stress via environmental changes can cause the trees to decline. Recently some species of opportunistic fungi (diplodia and phytophthora) following environmental and climate change have had a prominent role in the decline of the trees in several regions.

The second reason is that synthetic cork will not taint the spirit within the bottle ensuring the quality of the product.

We will continually work with our suppliers and are committed to acting and improving where possible.

OUR PACKAGING

We have kept our packaging simple and have not created any display / presentation boxes. A recent survey showed that 94% of boxes are discarded once opened. Our design is our bottle, it speaks for itself.

Our distillery uses recycled paper bags at our events.

We are also phasing out the bladder protective shock packs and replacing these with the new card inserts, when we ship to you.