Sustainability
CARBON NEUTRAL SINCE 2019
The Gin Kitchen distillery, in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, has been carbon neutral (scope 1 and 2) since 2019. All of the energy for the production of spirits, heating and lighting the buildings comes from renewable sources.
WATER CONSERVATION
Distilling traditionally requires large volumes of water for cooling the stills and reducing the spirit. To dramatically reduce the distillery's water consumption we developed our own closed-loop cooling system using reservoirs, heat exchangers and a lot of thermodynamics know-how from a past-life designing rocket motors!
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The water we use for reducing the spirits becomes part of our product. It is sourced from local aquifers and delivered through the mains water system. Due to the large volume of underground water sources in the Surrey Hills, and the small amount of water required, our operations are sustainable even in times of drought.
MATERIALS / PLASTICS
We are currently working on eliminating plastic from all our packaging.
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Our beautiful bottles are made from porcelain, which requires less energy to fire than glass, and the stoppers are biodegradable wood from sustainable sources.
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We use cardboard boxes for shipping, secured with paper-based tape. We're experimenting with different materials to provide shock impact such as mushroom cushioning and cardboard pulp.
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The only plastic remaining so far is recyclable PVC in the tamper-proof heat-shrink capsules and in some of our sticky labels.
WASTE
The majority of our waste is recyclable packaging sent to us by our suppliers, which we either reuse, or send for recycling.
We compost the byproducts of distillation such as spent juniper and we make Ginitizer, our 80% hand sanitiser, out of waste alcohol.
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Porcelain is hard-wearing and will last for many refills. We offer a discount to encourage our customers to bring bottles back to the distillery to be refilled. This reduces waste as well as the energy and resources needed to produce a new bottle. We offer a bulk-refill service for our bigger clients.
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We deliberately planned for our bottles to be
repurposed as vases, carafes and even lamps and water features. This cuts down on downstream waste as well as the energy needed to handle that waste.
If a bottle does need to be disposed of, porcelain can be recycled into building hardcore, or broken up and disposed of in landfill where it will remain inert, eventually returning to its original clay form.
