BIER Member Spotlight: Carine Christophe

Welcome to our series aimed at spotlighting the individual leaders within BIER member companies and stakeholder organizations. Learn how these practitioners and their companies are addressing pressing challenges around water, energy, agriculture, climate change, and what inspires each of them to advance environmental sustainability in the beverage sector and collectively, overall.

Briefly describe your role and responsibilities and how long you have worked with your company.

My role at Pernod Ricard is to drive the implementation of our 2030 Sustainability & Responsibility strategy, Good Times from a Good Place, in particular the two pillars related to the environment which are Nurturing Terroir and Circular Making. The first one is targeting the transformation of our conventional agricultural approach to a more regenerative and sustainable one while contributing to preserve and increase biodiversity.  The second one is aiming at moving from a linear to a circular world through the management of water resources, packaging, and climate.

I have been working for Pernod Ricard since 2010. Initially, during the first years, I focused on developing an environmental strategy for the production sites and then later, extending it to the entire business.

How has the company’s sustainability program evolved over the years and what are your specific priorities for 2020?

Pernod Ricard’s early sustainability program focused primarily on production site efficiency but has evolved to include all our product life cycle from grain to glass. For 2020, we defined priorities and set targets for each of these aspects. Main priorities and achievements are described below:

• Promoting sustainable agriculture. Over the years, we certified 99% of the vineyards operated by the Group to environmental standards, equipped 100% of them with a drip irrigation system, and reduced by half the synthetic agrochemical used.
• Mitigating our impact on climate. So far, we reached a reduction of 34% of our carbon emissions (Scope 1 and 2) in our production sites from FY10 to FY19 and increase the sourcing of renewable electricity to 75%. We recently submitted our science-based targets for 2030 which are now approved.
• Minimizing water use. We reduced by 22% of the water consumed in our production sites, and set specific actions plan in countries where water risks are high.

2020 and beyond:

For 2030, we aim at bringing good times from a good place, creating a more convivial world, a world without excess, and we have set stronger targets in all these areas. I invite you to visit our brochure.

• Since the launch of our new strategy last year, we have already made clear progress in specific areas. For example, in shifting the mindset from a linear to circular design for our packaging and POS. We recently launched sustainability packaging guidelines to achieve this ambition.

Learn more about Carine Christophe in this BIER Member Spotlight.

About BIER

The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) is a technical coalition of leading global beverage companies working together to advance environmental sustainability within the beverage sector. BIER aims to affect sector change through work focused on water stewardship, energy efficiency and climate change, beverage container recycling, sustainable agriculture, and ecosystem services. BIER members include: American Beverage Association, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bacardi, Beam Suntory, Brown-Forman, Carlsberg Group, The Coca-Cola Company, Constellation Brands, Diageo, Heineken, Jackson Family Wines, MillerCoors, Molson Coors, Pernod Ricard, Ocean Spray Cranberries, and PepsiCo. For more information, visit www.bieroundtable.com.