Alcohol can be considered, by some, as one of the evils of our time. On November 4, The Independent on Sunday published a report, which claims that the number of children in treatment for alcohol abuse has risen by 40% since 2006 and the link between alcohol abuse and mental illness as well as health problems is undisputed.
So, can the alcohol industry consider itself truly responsible? And, perhaps more pressingly, is there a future for it – is it sustainable?
Steve Curzon, marketing director of Adnams, thinks so: “That’s an aspect of the industry that brands like ourselves really need to front up to and behave in a responsible way. We need to persuade consumers and stakeholders that what we are doing is not harmful and that we absolutely believe that alcohol is there to be enjoyed, but that it is there to be enjoyed responsibly.”
Based in the coastal town of Southwold in Suffolk, Adnams is a brewing company that was started by George and Ernest Adnams in 1872 and now employs 290 people. In 1997, Curzon explains, the company decided to change “the entire culture of the business so that it became much more open and progressive” and decided to become a “values-led business”. This means “doing things right” and “doing things right is about our people, our community and it is about the environment,” adds Curzon. In September, it became the first brewery to meet the GoodCorporation standard for responsible business practice, which involves a rigorous investigation of the company’s approach to its staff, customers, suppliers, shareholders, community contribution and environmental protection.
Connecting to the community
With its origins in the Victorian era, when philanthropy started to take root in society, Adnams has always had a “deep-seated connection” with its community, Curzon explains. The business relies on local support from local people and fostering a strong relationship with the local community is one of the ways in which the company is guaranteeing its sustainability.
The Adnams Charity was established in 1990 and it supports causes within a 12 mile radius of the church in the Southwold town centre through funding. It also adopted a beach in the area and organises beach cleans when it encourages its staff and the community to join in and clean up the beach (with a fish and chips reward at the end of the day).
Its community involvement goes further through an enterprise programme that provides local children with the insight to consider careers in a business. Adnams runs the initiative in partnership with a school in nearby Lowestoft and every year 15 pupils from Kirkley High School visit the Adnams site on Fridays and each one shadows a volunteer member of staff for the day. The students see all aspects of the business and also carry out community projects of their own. Says Curzon: “It is a great way to give those young people an experience of what it is like to be inside a business and do things we take for granted – like getting a 13-year-old boy to make a phone call to someone he has never met before.”
Engaging employees
The employees act at mentors to the students and are, Curzon stresses, invaluable to the business. For Adnams, being a values-led business, also means treating employees “fairly, with respect and equally” and the business “invests a lot of time, energy and money in developing our people”. Every employee is also a shareholder, so “they have a genuine interest in the business being successful”. Due to its relative remoteness on the coast, the company ensures that a doctor visits the site once a month and pension advisors also visit on a timely basis to provide employees with information about pensions and saving. Employees are also encouraged to come forward with ideas about charitable donations. The employees not only work at the brewery but also at the pubs, two hotels and an expanding chain of wine and kitchenware stores owned and branded by Adnams.
Sourcing Sustainably
The expanding scope of the business means that Adnams has started buying beer from other suppliers as well as sourcing food for its restaurants, which has implications for embedding sustainability within the business strategy of the company – if suppliers are not in on the game, absolute sustainability can not be guaranteed.
“Having a healthy supplier-retailer relationship is key,” says Curzon and he explains that Adnams has recently been negotiating with its suppliers and provided them with a brief that outlined that “I want your best prices, I want marketing support, and I want to know what you are doing about your carbon footprint”. He adds that this has been a learning curve for both Adnams and its suppliers and that he has realised “how much more there is for business to do to meet the challenge [of climate change]”.
With regard to the food in its hotel restaurants and kitchenware stores, Curzon says that it is not always possible to source everything locally but that the business endeavours to do so whenever it can. He says: “We don’t write it into a formal contract as such but there is a process in place where we need to reassure ourselves that the way in which they have produced their product is the right way and if there is a problem with how it was produced, we will deal with it.” The chef at each of the restaurants also works closely with suppliers and gets involved in the process of ‘field to plate’.
Challenging climate change
Being situated in a coastal town provides the company with a “daily reminder of the impact of climate change,” says Curzon, and therefore the impact of its business operations on the environment is important to Adnams.
Adnams is probably best known, in the field of corporate responsibility, for its state-of-the-art eco-friendly distribution centre, situated about two miles outside of Southwold. Curzon explains that the company was faced with a real business need in that it had outgrown its town centre distribution centre and was thus faced with the decision of either building a cheaper, but less environmentally-friendly, building or “something that’s more meaningful, and makes a longer term impact, and its going to cost a bit more”. He says that selecting the second option made business sense as the distribution centre “symbolises everything we stand for” and even though it was more expensive, the initial cost will pay dividends in the future as consumers identify with Adnams as a sustainable and environmentally-aware brand.
Curzon describes the building as a “giant thermos flask” as it has a sedum roof and is built into the hollow of a former gravel pit and therefore it has natural thermal insulation. The walls are also constructed of lime chalk and hemp and there are inner and outer doors, so that the temperature in the building is controlled naturally through airflow – in a nutshell: no electricity is used to cool the beer. The sedum roof harvests rainwater, which is filtered in a reed bed and returned to the building to be used for flushing the toilets or washing the distribution vehicles and the inner lighting system is on motion sensors. Curzon also feels that the building has social benefits in that the sales team, customer services, the draymen and the technicians all now work together in the same building, which means a lot for a sense of team spirit and, from a customer’s point of view, makes it easier to solve problems on the spot.
A further phase of this development has been the recent overhaul of the actual brewery in the town centre. It is now one of Europe’s most energy-efficient breweries as the steam used to heat the brew is no longer released into the atmosphere. Instead it is recycled and heats the next brew. All the spent grain used to produce the alcohol is converted into animal feed.
The brewery also has a cultural aspect to it in that it is based inside a Victorian building and it is important to safeguard the historical buildings of Southwold. “So, we have effectively just built an entirely new brewery – on the inside. What you have is this Victorian skin, which is absolutely true to the town and preserves the character but on the inside you have a state-of-the-art energy efficient brewery.”
Adnams has also taken a far-reaching approach to its energy efficiency by considering the environmental impact of the bottle in which the beer is sold. The bottle was recently re-designed and the result is that it is 34% lighter in glass than its predecessor. This, according to Curzon, amounts to a saving in carbon emissions because it is more energy-efficient to produce the bottle. The carbon emissions saved, he points out, amount to that of 138 cars. “We went on to audit the amount of energy our people use to travel to and from work – how far they go and what kind of car they have – and, coincidently, the 138 cars equates to all the mileage of all our staff travelling to work and home again, as well as the mileage our salesmen run up in the course of their business,” says Curzon. He says that the saving of 34% in glass has offset the mileage of the business.
Responsible drinking
That is all well and good and Adnams is turning into a leader in the field of sustainability but it is still a brewer and still produces a product that is steeped in controversy.
Describing the drinks industry as one of the “most legislated industries in the country”, Curzon explains that the Adnams brand is not about encouraging people to drink more but it is about encouraging more people to drink Adnams.
And the company takes this philosophy through to its marketing and recently blurred one of its best-known advertisements – a coastal image – to illustrate the potential downsides of alcohol consumption. ‘Remember, you can have too much of a good thing’ is printed clearly underneath the image and is designed to communicate to consumers that alcohol is not a bad thing as long as it is consumed responsibly. The company was also aware that there is a lack of awareness over what a unit of alcohol is and included this on the back of a series of cards advertising the brand.
The company has further partnered with Norcas, a local drug and advisory service based in Norfolk and Suffolk, to help educate young people about the dangers of excessive alcohol use through a series of alcocards. The alcocards are available in popular teenage hangouts in the local area and illustrate the different slang words used to describe being drunk – like hammered, pickled and legless – but on the back of the cards information is provided about, for example, alcohol-related injuries or accidents.
Norcas’ board of trustees is chaired by Andy Wood, the managing director of Adnams. The managing director of an alcohol company sitting on the board of a charity that, effectively, champions against the effects of the product is an example of Adnams’ progressive approach to the issue.
Communicating values
“We are now at that place where we are actively taking our message to consumers,” Curzon concludes. And this includes the message that ‘you can have too much of a good thing’. He adds that sustainability means to attract and retain the most talented people, to have a harmonious and positive relationship with the community and to consider the impact of business operations on the environment. All this leads to better business performance and return for shareholders. “We are the kind of business that shareholders want to invest in, that people want to work for and increasingly – because of what we are doing – the brand that people want to buy.”
So, can Adnams’ holistic approach to sustainability act as a benchmark for the rest of the sector? And can this be the key for the enjoyment of alcohol by future generations? We will have to wait and see but it may
just be.
Steve Curzon joined Adnams in 2004 as head of marketing and was subsequently appointed to the board as marketing director. He has previously worked in senior marketing roles at Nestlé, the food company, and the Lawn Tennis Association in London.