Here at Parched, we love championing sustainability, so when we heard about ecoSpirits, a program started to eliminate the use of single glass bottles in bars and hotels, we were excited to find out more. Here’s what we learnt.

ecoSpirits is an innovative closed-loop distribution technology that nearly eliminates packaging waste in the premium spirits supply chain. It does so by replacing single use glass spirit bottles with ecoTotes, a much bigger 4.5-litre vessel that can be refilled and reused, instead of having to be recycled or tossed out. When the ecoTotes are empty, they go back to the ecoPlants* to be refilled with premium spirits like Widges Copper Pot Stilled Gin and T&T Straight Wheat Vodka.

The cool thing is, with each single use glass spirit bottle less, ecoSpirits saves at least 550 grams of carbon emissions. This means each cocktail or spirits pour saves 30 grams of emissions! Now that’s drinking responsibly!

In July 2020, ecoSpirits welcomed three leading craft spirits producers to the ecoSpirits low carbon, low waste distribution network in Asia Pacific: Never Never Distilling Co. in Australia, Peddlers Gin Company in China, and Brass Lion Distillery in Singapore. These three join existing partner brands including Plantation Rum, Tried & True Vodka, Widges Gin, Arquitecto Tequila and Mackintosh Blended Malt Scotch Whisky.

ecoTotes

ecoSpirits has been adopted by a large number of leading hotels, restaurants and bars in Asia Pacific. The pioneer client for ecoSpirits worldwide was Raffles Hotel Singapore, who relaunched the iconic Singapore Sling with ecoSpirits in September 2018, saving tens of thousands of single use bottles per year. In addition, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts have adopted ecoSpirits across Asia Pacific. Many ecoSpirits partner venues around Asia Pacific are ranked in the Michelin Guide and on the list of World’s 50 Best Bars and Asia’s 50 Best Bars.

In addition to reducing glass waste, the Forest Program will plant one indigenous tree in a reforestation tract of the Kalimantan rainforest area in Borneo, Indonesia for each cycle of an ecoTote through the ecoSpirits and Four Seasons closed loop. ecoSpirits expects to plant several thousand trees on behalf of Four Seasons in the next 12 months. 

ecoSpirits CEO Paul Gabie notes, “Provenance is important for premium spirits, and for the well-travelled luxury hotel guest. Unfortunately, this translates into high carbon footprints. ecoSpirits addresses the problem of single use glass, which makes up the majority of the carbon footprint of premium spirits. We are delighted to partner with Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, who are demonstrating true sustainability leadership with this Asia-Pacific wide commitment. Together, we can eliminate a small portion of the 22 million tons of carbon emission that single use glass spirit bottles will generate in 2020.”

ecoSpirits is currently available in Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, China, Malaysia, Thailand, the Maldives, Australia and New Zealand. 

• ecoPlants are small footprint, semi-automated facilities located in each ecoSpirits city that process spirits by sanitising, refilling and sealing ecoTotoes. ecoTotes are returned to a local ecoPlant for refilling, creating a closed loop that can service a large city and adjacent suburban areas. ecoPlants are containerised, which allows for rapid, seamless onboarding of new cities.

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