Growing for good: sustainability at Suntory

Few manufacturing sectors are so intrinsically linked to sustainability and climate change than food and beverage. Suntory Beverage and Food GB&I, manufacturer of well-known brands such as Ribena and Lucozade, has placed sustainability at the forefront of its business with its ‘Growing for Good’ strategy. The Manufacturer caught up with Corporate Sustainability Manager, Charlie Kingsley, to find out more.

Suntory Beverage and Food GB&I (SBF GB&I) was formed in 2014 and is part of the wider Japan-based Suntory group, one of the world’s largest drinks manufacturers, with a heritage dating back to 1899. The business has around 700 employees in the UK across manufacturing sites in Coleford in Gloucestershire, its headquarters in Stockley Park, West London, and also its Dublin office.

Driven from the top down, from European CEO, Pierre Decroix, sustainability is built into the entire business and is integral to the company values of Growing for Good, giving back to society and the Japanese ethos of ‘Yatte Minahare’ (very loosely translated as ‘dream big’).

“Sustainability is instilled in every aspect of our business, and our purpose is to inspire the brilliance of life by creating rich experiences for people in harmony with nature. This has been especially true over the past few years, during which our sustainability team has grown quite significantly,” said Charlie.

Advances in sustainability have included the launch of the company’s own European Climate Council in 2023. This sits on a regular basis and functions to bring together experts from across European divisions in sustainability and climate related functions, to make sure progress and targets are being addressed appropriately.

Charlie added: “In our European business, we have also introduced our climate lead, who is responsible for our climate transition plans. It’s something that the business has invested in heavily over the past few years; it’s very much embedded into the business and is growing year-on-year.”

Sustainability aligned with business

Charlie explained that it is absolutely critical that SBF GB&I’s sustainability strategy is aligned with the broader company commercial strategy. Climate change ultimately poses a huge risk to food and drink manufacturers, to say nothing of the disruption currently impacting supply routes and the growing of agricultural commodities. “Meeting net zero emissions is not only important to reduce the impact on the planet, but it also improves the resilience and the longer-term commercial sustainability of our business.

“Having key executive committee sponsorship is super important, and we have a plethora of different types of sustainability related committees and meetings across the business. All these have at least one sponsorship from the executive committee to make sure issues are being escalated up the business in the right manner. We’re very fortunate that we have leaders in our business who truly believe in a sustainable future.”

Milestones on the journey

SBF GB&I has made good progress on its sustainability journey, but like most businesses, Charlie admits there is still some way to go.

The company has reduced its carbon footprint by 14.7% since its baseline measurement in 2019, and importantly, that includes a 16% reduction in Scope 3 emissions. The company also purchases 100% renewable electricity and in late 2024 announced a £6m investment to make its factory in Coleford completely independent of its current gas turbine. This investment will significantly reduce SBF GB&I’s Scope 1 emissions by an estimated 58%, putting it four years ahead of its target to halve its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030.

The new energy model is set to be up and running in 2026 and will see the current 11kV connection that feeds the factory upgraded with a 33kV version, increasing the factory’s access to electricity purchased from renewable sources.

Back in 2020 it also installed a new high speed bottle filling line, which uses 40% less energy and water to fill each drink. The sleeve length of the bottles has also been reduced over the past few years, to improve 41 the recyclability and reduce the amount of packaging going out to market.

Previously, bottles had a sleeve which covered almost 100% of the bottle. The company discovered that because of this, bottles would often fail to get identified as clear plastic waste when going through the recycling process, and therefore would get downcycled into traffic cones or garden furniture, for example.

However, a key piece of SBF GB&I’s sustainability strategy is to accelerate circularity; in other words it wants its bottles to be turned back into more bottles. Therefore, SBF GB&I worked with waste management services company, Recoup, and discovered that if the bottle sleeve covered no more than 40% of the bottle, it would be identified as clear plastic waste and would therefore be turned back into a new bottle. This has been a key modification for some of SBF GB&I’s existing and established products.

Charlie added: “More recycled content has also been incorporated into our bottles which has been a key Scope 3 emission reduction lever for us, and right now, average recycled content across our whole portfolio is at 59%.”

Since 2004 SBF GB&I has Biodiversity Action Plans in place for each of its blackcurrant farms, with the aim to improve and boost biodiversity, a key part of the sustainability strategy for the Ribena brand. In addition, climate resistant blackcurrant species have also been introduced which are better at accommodating the changing climate in the UK.

“We run a lot of engagement surveys with our growers to make sure we understand some of the challenges and opportunities they’re facing”, Charlie continued. “Maintaining a good relationship with our growers is something which is very important to our business.”

In addition, a programme called Mizuiku (translated as water education) has been launched, a Japanese-founded programme for communities around SBF GB&I’s manufacturing sites in the Gloucestershire area, to raise awareness around the use of water.

Hurdles along the way

Setting ambitious goals and targets means that there are going to be occasions where a business will fall slightly short, but this is okay, as Charlie pointed out. “There are many factors at play determining success in sustainability, but having a good foundation, purpose and vision is ultimately going to enable us to make the right decisions moving forward.”

Like all businesses, Scope 3 is a constant challenge for SBF GB&I and although progress has been made in this regard, more needs to be done to reach the company’s 2030 target of a 30% reduction in Scope 3 emissions. And supplier engagement is a key work stream around achieving this.

Regenerative agriculture isn’t easy. SBF GB&I launched a pilot project in 2023 for one of its blackcurrant growers. However, poor weather conditions, and the fact that conventional plantations were being retrofitted into regenerative plantations, have posed some challenges. Therefore, SBF GB&I is making changes to the project year-on-year to make sure that it continues to be effective.

The UK’s recycling infrastructure also presents its own challenges. Charlie explained that the recycling rate in the UK has unfortunately stagnated over the past 15 years, sitting at around 40-45%.

He added: “We at SBF GB&I have been long supporters of improving the UK recycling infrastructure and introducing mechanisms like a deposit return scheme to improve recycling rates, but this has been delayed through numerous political cycles. Although, in February 2024, we saw Ireland introduce its own deposit return scheme, and it’s already shown great success. So we look forward to welcoming our own scheme in the UK, which is due 2027.”

Four key sustainability pillars

SBF GB&I’s ‘Growing for Good’ sustainability strategy is aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and is underpinned by four main pillars – drinks, resources, society and partners.

This framework was first developed in 2018 following a materiality assessment to identify the sustainability issues that are most material to running the business. Since then, SBF GB&I is continuing to listen to stakeholders and monitor the landscape for emerging issues to evolve and refresh the framework and strategy according to market conditions.

The company has chosen to have an integrated sustainability operating model. This means that while SBF GB&I has a team of specialists it is also upskilling people in certain roles within material functions such as packaging, to give them the capability to make their own sustainability related decisions in their roles.

Charlie explained that upskilling is extremely important to maintain the success of this sustainability integrated operating model. And there are numerous ways in which the business approaches this. One example is an annual campaign called Green Week, where the company creates content for employees across Europe to engage with.

This involves webinars, presentations, panel discussions and workshops, where staff can sign up and engage to upskill and learn not only about the company’s sustainability strategy, but also empowering employees to integrate sustainability within their own roles.

Training sessions are also run for the executive committee as well, to make sure that they understand the basics and the progress that has been made.

Sustainability and NPD

Every new drink that has been developed at SBF GB&I gets screened and assessed based on its potential sustainability impacts. Drinks that aren’t aligned with the company’s sustainability strategy will either immediately get rejected, or get flagged as a risk to the executive committee.

This is a simple process introduced several years ago. It is currently going through an update and being elaborated to ensure that it is more robust and accurate to reflect the evolving sustainability strategy of the business. “It doesn’t need to be super complex when you first introduce systems like this into the new product development process,” added Charlie.

“We are actually very fortunate, because not many products get rejected. This is testament to our upskilling in our wider business. Most colleagues know our sustainability strategy and exactly what we want to achieve. Therefore, the products which they want to bring to market would typically always be aligned.”

Don’t wait for perfect data

Like most companies, SBF GB&I is on a data journey when it comes to sustainability. Its first carbon footprint baseline measurement took place in 2014 and was a good starting point to identify the primary emission hotspots. “We found that Scope 3 – primarily transport, ingredients and packaging – made up the majority (91%) of our carbon footprint,” added Charlie.

Importantly, SBF GB&I’s data at this point was not perfect, but like most baseline measurements, it was largely built upon a combination of consumption and spendbased data. However, it allowed the business to identify its main greenhouse gas emissions and quickly act upon them.

“Data imperfections shouldn’t get in the way of progress, especially when grabbing those low-hanging pieces of fruit, which typically get presented when you’re first measuring your carbon footprint,” he continued.

“However, it should be remembered that improving data quality year-onyear is a key consideration for us, as it will allow us to make more targeted decisions on our sustainability journey once that low-hanging fruit has been grabbed. And we’ve actually just started incorporating new measures to improve our data quality.”

One such measure is Cool Farm Tool, a data platform focused on measuring emissions on farms. SBF GB&I has also implemented a new ESG platform for its European Division, which will be live this year. “Although year-on-year improvement of data quality is key, it shouldn’t be the reason progress stagnates, especially in the early stages of your sustainability journey,” Charlie added.

Sustainability and profitability – the trade-offs

While something of a balancing act exists between becoming more sustainable at the same time as becoming more profitable, Charlie explained that the company’s strategy is based on the ethos that the more the company grows, the more good it can do.

He concluded: “As we grow and have more resources, we can redirect some of that into reducing our emissions and giving back to society, which are fundamental aspects of our strategy. This means that any balancing act that is taking place is being done in a way which is representative and meaningful.