Why we developed a new guidance
We want the guidance to cover all aspects of sustainability of relevance to the beverages we sell. No ready-made option is available. We therefore took the initiative to gather the information we need ourselves, allowing us to guide our customers to more sustainable choices.
Which sustainability aspects does the label cover?
Packaging, cultivation and production are the areas that have the biggest impact during a product’s journey from farm to store. The requirements are therefore focused on these three areas.
For environment, this resulted in the following specification of the requirements:
- For Cultivation and Production, the most significant areas are energy/climate impact, water use, biodiversity, chemical use and waste. These factors have been indicative for the benchmarking/auditing certifications with environmental requirements that Intertek has carried out on our behalf in the beverage industry.
- The packaging accounts for the largest part of the total climate footprint of products. The climate footprint of packaging is therefore a separate criterion when qualifying for Our Most Sustainable Beverages.
The environmental/climate footprint of transportation is small compared to cultivation, production and packaging. Despite this, we still envisage that the environment and climate impact of transportation could be a worthy criterion to include going forward, if we are able to obtain qualitative data on emissions from the various means of transport linked to the product in question.
For social responsibility, the requirement areas are the same as in Systembolaget’s risk analysis. These are based on the Code of Conduct from amfori BSCI that we have committed to follow and include these areas:
- Freedom of association and collective bargaining
- Discrimination
- Wages
- Working hours
- Workers’ rights
- Occupational health and safety
- Protection of employees from overheating and dehydration
- Child labour
- Young workers
- Gender equality
- Forced labour or unethical recruitment
- Ethical business behaviour
The criteria must make a difference
We want to drive change and contribute to a more sustainable development. The criteria have been set at a level where they:
1. can make a difference within a particular beverage category and/or within a particular origin. Different requirement levels between different categories may therefore sometimes apply.
2. should feel possible to achieve, so that we can motivate larger number of suppliers and producers to work more actively on sustainability issues.
All beverages have the chance to become one of Our Most Sustainable Beverages, but qualification requires target-oriented work from all involved in the supply chain. That is how we drive change.
The criteria will evolve
The criteria will be progressively sharpened, further aspects to sustainability may be introduced and those beverages that qualify today may not do so tomorrow. Everything in order for Our Most Sustainable Beverages to be a true guide to the most sustainable beverages in our range.