Shaking up travel plans: Scotch Whisky Association's approach to net zero

From their offices in Edinburgh and London, The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) represents around 90 companies from across the Scotch whisky industry, from global spirits producers to family-owned distilleries.

It works to promote the trade and export of Scotch whisky around the world; take legal action against fakes; encourage responsible consumption; and support industry operations, including achieving net zero.

While the SWA has had an environmental strategy since 2009, a staff survey last year found there was considerable appetite for going further and faster to reduce the associations’ own greenhouse gas emissions.

So, seven staff members formed a sustainability working group, with Liz Gibb, deputy director of operations, taking the lead.

Reducing emissions from business travel is their priority, explains Liz, as it accounts for 92% of the association’s carbon footprint – primarily from flights, including domestic, short-haul international and long-haul international trips.

Data hacks

The first step was to collect and analyse data on business trips, to understand where to take action.

Fortunately, the SWA had the year before started using Webexpenses, an online expense management platform. This made gathering data easy, says Liz, and meant that she had a year’s worth of details about the SWA’s business trips – the times, destinations, modes of transport and costs – to unpack.

A helpful time-saving takeaway from this is to calculate the mileage, fuel consumption or CO2 emissions from all frequently made journeys and record this in a spreadsheet for future reference. As Liz says: “If you've already got your data set up... you only have to do that once.”

“A bit of judicious Googling can really help.” - Liz Gibb

But sometimes data collection wasn't so straightforward. Taxi journeys, for example, can be tricky. In the end, Liz found information on the free Taxi Calculator about the average cost of taxi journeys per kilometre in different cities around the world – then used it to estimate the distance travelled by staff using receipts.

She says: “Sometimes it's about thinking a bit differently about the data you have and how you can use that to create or to find the data that you want, the carbon emissions. A bit of judicious Googling can really help.”

As this shows, you don't need a comprehensive dataset to get started. For SMEs, a good proxy or estimate of your CO2 footprint is often enough to take informed actions.

💡Here is ECCI’s template spreadsheet for recording your emissions data.

2025 goals

With this information, Liz is proposing several targets to be included in the SWA’s Net Zero action plan for this year. They are good examples of clear, measurable and achievable goals – essential if we want to reach net zero!

First, is to take 25% fewer domestic flights this year compared to 2024. To this end, she is suggesting a ‘train first’ policy for journeys between Edinburgh and London. (Another Edinburgh-based company successfully introduced this exact policy last year.) This would save an estimated 6 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Second, is to reduce the number of international flights by 5% over the same period. This might entail capping the number of people on each trip, but would save 7.2 tonnes of CO2!

With no alternative to flying for certain locations, to some degree this means simply deciding not to take some trips. But Liz remains resolutely optimistic that it can be done while upholding the SWA’s mission.

“We recognise that we do have to do some international travel. So how do we fulfil our strategic objectives, do our work as we need to do, but go to the USA fewer times? It's about having an honest conversation.”

Top tips from Scotch Whisky Association

• 📊 Get good data collection systems in place. That gave us a really strong platform from which to make changes and recommendations that were evidence based and not just plucked out of thin air.
• 🏁 Start with the largest area of your footprint that you control. You might find that an indirect source of emissions, like purchased services, has the highest carbon footprint. But remember, your ability to influence that is more limited.

We invite you to sign up for Climate Springboard, a free business support programme by Edinburgh Climate Change Institute. It’s designed to equip SMEs in Scotland with the knowledge and tools to start out on their journey to net zero. 

It lasts just over a month and is completely free. At the end, attendees leave with a company carbon footprint, a template for a long-term net-zero strategy, and a tailored list of quick ways to lower emissions and costs.