Sustainable distilling: CO₂ emissions, energy decarbonization, and by-products

The environmental impact of distilled spirits is as variable as the range of spirits themselves and is dependent on the processes and energy sources in place and available at the distillery and the wider impacts from source of raw materials including crops and packaging to the end route of by-products and the transport involved at every stage. With distilleries having climate neutrality and/or net zero goals, it is important to understand the current benchmarks in distilled spirit production and technologies available now and in the future to help drive decarbonization. This chapter discusses the environmental impact of distilled spirits with a focus on greenhouse gases produced in terms of CO₂e, how energy use and source can be addressed to reduce this and how energy generation can be interlinked with the additional applications of by-products.