In the whisky sector, sustainability has cemented itself as an agenda staple. The industry is, in many ways, a perfect example of what can be achieved through joined-up thinking, and a dogged determination to do better. Numerous distilleries – Nc’nean, Bruichladdich, and Glengoyne, to name a few – have either achieved, or are on the way to achieving, net-zero status, while GlenWyvis, Scotland’s first crowd-funded whisky distillery, is entirely powered by green energy.
Yet the march towards an entirely sustainable future is not without its challenges, and dealing with the environmentally detrimental burning of peat, something long associated with Scotch whisky, is a hurdle that needs to be overcome.
Going over old ground
The burning of peat, a fuel formed over thousands of years from the partial decomposition of vegetation in waterlogged conditions, remains a somewhat contentious matter in the whisky sector. It is, undoubtedly, a far from environmentally friendly exercise, but it is also true that the entire Scotch whisky industry equates to less than 1 per cent of the total peat extracted
