As part of its ongoing sustainability efforts, Bermudian-headquartered Bacardi Limited has announced the recipients of its fifth annual Bacardi Limited Good Spirited Awards, launched in 2014.

The awards recognise the employees, teams and facilities across the company’s global network that developed the best environmental programs across five different categories: Production Facility, Brand Innovation, Sustainable Office, Green Champions or Partnerships.

This year’s winners instituted programmes to shift to renewable energy, reduce water use and waste, increase recycling efforts and amplify the Bacardi Limited “No Straws” campaign to decrease the amount of single-use plastic straws by one billion over the next two years.

“Bacardi Limited’s Good Spirited Awards truly underscore the company’s foundation and support of global environmental sustainability efforts at our facilities and in our communities,” Rick Wilson, senior vice-president of corporate responsibility for Bacardi Ltd, said. “It brings great pride to not only be a part of a company that is actively working towards its goal of net-zero impact, but also to see the immense effort our global colleagues have put into improving the environment for future generations to come.”

The Bacardi Limited Good Spirited initiatives provide the company with immediate and actionable plans to facilitate long-term environmental improvements across operations, global packaging and responsible sourcing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water use. Thirteen years ago, Bacardi began tracking its global impact on the environment to reach its net-zero impact goal, which means that it aims to put back into the environment at least as much as it takes away.

The Bacardi Limited Good Spirited Award winners are:

• Arandas/Tultitlán, Mexico, Green Energy — Production Facility: Bacardi in Mexico guaranteed that electrical consumption in Arandas and Tultitlán facilities come from 100 per cent renewable resources, specifically from wind farms.

• Meyrin, Switzerland — Sustainable Office: Driven by the Green Team in Geneva, office enhancements set the standard to make a positive impact on the environment. Among actions including LED tube installation, temperature set point reduction, and no more usage of plastic cups office-wide, the car sharing programme for commuters to both the Geneva office and to the Pessione site in Italy, reigned as the most visible and impactful.

• Andrea Ferrera, Pessione, Italy — Green Champions: The Pessione Operations Centre in Italy over-delivered its environmental targets.

• China No Straws & Lonely Whale — Partnership: The Future Doesn’t Suck, a global collaboration between Bacardi Limited and the award-winning non-profit organisation Lonely Whale, was first introduced to the China market last September to support the global goal of reducing single-use plastic straws by one billion by 2020. Within a month, this China No Straws campaign had nearly 6.35 million impressions and successfully on-boarded large hotel chains and restaurants to the movement.

The company said the efforts of Bacardi people are closely aligned to the company’s environmental goal which is to return to the environment at least as much as we take away.

The company has set targets for 2025 (measured against a 2015 baseline) to reduce water consumed by 25 per cent; to replenish 50 per cent of water incorporated into the final product; and to reduce absolute GHG emissions by 50 per cent and to reduce absolute value chain GHG emissions by 20 per cent (both targets approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative).

In addition, Bacardi has committed to zero-waste-to-landfill at all manufacturing sites by 2022, a focus on eliminating single-use plastic straws and developing single-use plastic reduction across operations and supply chain.