Sign up to our new campaign

By Andrew Catchpole

Published: 04 February, 2022

Welcome to the unveiling of our Sustainability Charter, which forms the central pillar of an exciting new Harpers campaign. With sustainability rising back to the top of the world’s collective agenda, this initiative is designed to further galvanise the drinks trade and assist it in moving towards ever more pressing sustainable goals.

To help achieve this, the Harpers Sustainability Charter encourages its signatories to share, support and promote best practice through transparency on all aspects of their sustainable journeys, including internal targets and externally accredited schemes, to the benefit of all.

To whet your appetite and encourage your business to sign up, thus joining our founding signatories, there’s also a taster below of why they jumped aboard and how they see this sustainability-focused hub as vitally important for the wider drinks trade.

The Harpers Sustainability Charter

The Harpers Sustainability Charter is aimed at UK-based* drinks-related trades and sectors, championing those that are demonstrably advancing sustainable best practices across their businesses, and thus helping advance the wider trade in meeting globally pressing sustainability goals.

The goal of this Charter is to build a network of sustainably minded businesses and be a reference for companies looking to work with sustainable partners.

As such, the Harpers Sustainability Charter forms part of a dedicated Harpers campaign to help drive sustainability across all facets of the UK drinks trade, by sharing, supporting and promoting best practice.

Signatories to the Harpers Sustainability Charter will be required to show that they are moving along an increasingly sustainable trajectory towards annual goals, by confirming actions taken to meet specific targets embraced by those companies.

In its launch year, signatories will be asked to confirm actions taken to date that demonstrate a sustainable trajectory.

Considering the multifaceted nature of sustainability – encompassing environmental, social and economic elements – the Harpers Sustainability Charter is designed to allow signatories to chart their progress along various pathways towards greater sustainability (see right), in line with the resources, current focus and ability of a given business.

By tracking progress across various key areas of sustainable advancement, the Sustainability Charter initiative will showcase the commitment of signatories (both individually and collectively) to deliver a sustainable future for the UK drinks trade.

This will be backed by regular coverage via Harpers Wine & Spirit, including our dedicated Sustainability Reports, webinars and round tables, helping to promote the visibility and communication of the sustainable credentials of Charter signatories to other partners in business across the supply chain, to the benefit of all.

* Businesses with a UK HQ or dedicated UK office.

Harpers Sustainability Charter Pathways

Signatories to the Charter will be invited to chart their sustainable progress across the following, as applicable:

• Carbon footprint reduction

• Use of renewable energy

• Waste management & recycling

• Water management

• Ecological care & regeneration

• NPD & packaging

• Staff welfare & progression

• Diversity & inclusivity

• Responsible drinking & public health

• Community focused activities

• Encouraging sustainability among supply chain partners

• Industry advocacy on environmental and social matters

• Responsible portfolio sourcing

The Harpers Sustainability Charter is open to UK drinks businesses of every shape and size that are genuinely embracing and moving along pathways to greater sustainability.

Measuring Progress

The progress of companies making a commitment to the Charter will be plotted against clear goals and targets set by those organisations, including adherence to external codes and/or accreditation bodies.

Reporting of progress must be clear, accurate and trustworthy, with the ability to substantiate such claims with credible evidence.

Evidence, when required, must also be submitted to the Harpers Sustainability Charter initiative.

Progress will be collated and published on an annual basis, but with more frequent occasional updates throughout the year, as companies progress towards their sustainable goals or meet a target along a given sustainable pathway.

Such sustainable gains will be discounted if a company is found to be increasing its unsustainable impact elsewhere, either within its own operations/business or with regard to the impact of business partners, suppliers and customers.

Overall, signatories to the Harpers Sustainability Charter will be committed to progressing sustainable best practices and sharing their progress with transparency for the benefit of all.

What we can offer our partners and signatories:

• Highlight to the wider trade that yours is an independently accredited and genuine sustainable business

• Highlight that the UK drinks trade is a responsible and sustainable sector to government, plus national and regional press

• Showcase your stories of success and your journey as a sustainability champion

• Bring the UK trade together to learn and share best practice when it comes to sustainability

Signing up to the Harpers Sustainability Charter

Becoming a signatory indicates a firm commitment on behalf of your company to engage with and drive forward sustainable progress, while informing the Harpers Sustainability initiative as requested of the progress made on an ongoing basis for our regular reviews and updates.

For more information and/or to enquire about signing up to the Harpers Sustainability Charter, please either contact sustainabilitycharter@harpers.co.uk or go straight to our registration form here.

Signing up for sustainability

Three of our founding signatories explain why their companies have placed sustainability at the heart of their ethos and how the Harpers Sustainability Charter can help them spread the word.

Simon Mason, head of wine sustainability & due diligence, The Wine Society

“We have been working for 18 months on our sustainability strategy, which is fairly all-encompassing, and we’ve already communicated some of our headline targets: to become carbon neutral by the end of 2023; to reduce our energy consumption and move to 100% renewables; and by 2040 to be certified as carbon net zero across Scopes 1, 2 & 3.

“We are very keen to cooperate with others to come up with innovative solutions to enable the whole industry to get down to the targets that we all need to get down to. This kind of initiative – the Sustainability Charter – is great because it puts the focus on the activities that companies are doing across the sector already, and hopefully aligns people around some of these goals.”

Diana Rollan, group head of beverage, D&D London

“We are fully aware of the impact that we are causing on the planet and D&D is fully committed to addressing a range of issues: to focus on sourcing more ethically; waste reduction; reducing plastic; maximising recycling; and reducing water consumption. A main objective is to become carbon neutral by 2023 and we’ve been working with SRI (socially responsible investing) targets to take the right steps to implement actions to help us reach that goal.

“We also want to focus on how we can create a much more positive impact, with long-term solutions that can deliver change. We want full transparency in what we are doing, to share, and persuade others to come on board, and the Charter can help us achieve that. The more we shout about sustainability, the more we can make others aware and hopefully inspire others to follow a sustainable path.”

Corinna Pyke, marketing & partnerships, Sustainable Wine Solutions

“Sustainable Wine Solutions is proud to be on the front line of innovation in wine distribution and packaging, being one of the first to promote quality wines from independent winemakers in alternative formats and to champion wine on tap. Since the early 2000s we have consistently looked for ways to reduce our carbon footprint and to change the behaviour of our customers to a reuse circular economy model. We aim to pave the way for a new, more sustainable and efficient supply chain and are therefore proud to be a signatory for the Harper’s Sustainability Charter. As none of us can make the necessary changes alone, together, working collaboratively, we can make a big impact. We have to do what we can and we have to do it now.”

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