Pioneering grain to glass

Reducing our carbon footprint and driving operational efficiencies remain key priorities for our business. This is why our targets under this pillar addresses issues such as carbon emission, waste water, deforestation, and packaging.

Reducing our carbon footprint and driving operational efficiencies remain key priorities for our business. This is why our targets under this pillar addresses issues such as carbon emission, waste water, deforestation, and packaging. As a drinks company, we know that water is and will always be a material resource, and therefore its careful management is a critical aspect of our environment strategy. The Diageo water blueprint defines our strategic approach to water stewardship. This blueprint is based on four core areas where we will increase our efforts: in the sourcing of raw materials; in our own operations; in the communities which we operate; and through local and global advocacy water stewardship efforts.

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Partnership with Wecyclers

In April 2018, Guinness Nigeria signed up Wecyclers, a for-profit social enterprise that promotes environmental sustainability, socio-economic development, and community health to support Guinness’s waste management agenda. This partnership is aimed at supporting the implementation of Guinness Nigeria’s 4R waste management strategy, covering REDUCTION, REUSE, RECOVERY and RECYCLING, while also addressing increasing local and global concerns around the environmental issues of waste disposal. This is in line with our commitment to reduce our environmental footprint as well as join the global movement to tackle environmental pollution.

World Water day programme with Lagos business school

In commemoration of the annual World Water day, Guinness Nigeria partnered with Lagos Business School (LBS) and other multinationals, environmental specialists, government agencies, policy makers and specialist academics to host a symposium that brought various stakeholders within the ecosystem together to deliberate and create awareness on policy measures, actions and means of implementing the water Sustainable Development Goals and targets.

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Transforming plastics waste into jobs and economic opportunity

We wish to tackle the threat plastics waste poses in Sub-Saharan Africa by turning this into an opportunity to create jobs, promote economic activity and reduce import dependency through improved collection and recycling.

We already have individual commitments to tackle plastics waste and collaborate through global collective action, such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment and are already engaged with national institutions and platforms in various markets.

However, limited collection and recycling capacity and systems combine with rapidly changing and diverse markets to create specific challenges to implementing our commitments across much of Sub-Saharan Africa1.

We therefore commit to collaborate at regional level, working with key stakeholders to strengthen and accelerate the collection and recycling of all kinds of plastics packaging by:

  • Facilitating and supporting our local subsidiaries to engage proactively in market level public private partnerships, industry collaboration and alliances
  • Sharing knowledge, encouraging innovation and collaborating on technical and other solutions appropriate for Sub-Saharan Africa as well as participating in local pilot initiatives
  • Engaging with the investment community, policy makers and others to accelerate the development and financing of the necessary waste management infrastructure and systems.

Our collaboration will focus on supporting local, market-led, practical solutions with the minimum necessary bureaucracy at the regional level. Each company will collaborate in those markets and on those issues where they add most value according to their scale and presence. Any initiatives we develop under this collaboration will aim to have comprehensive plans, will be appropriate to the local context and will be consistent with the principles of the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment.

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The primary objective of this alliance is to improve collection and recycling capacity and systems. This reflects the urgent need for collective action and does not exclude nor imply a priority over other issues such as reuse, reduction and packaging design that are equally necessary to tackle plastics waste in Africa.