Our Carbon Footprint

Articles

We've written a few useful articles about making alcoholic drinks, fermentation and some of the science behind it.

You'll also find some ideas for putting your own twist on MYO products by adding some new flavours to your drink.

Common Errors to Avoid PT3

The final part of our Most Common Errors to avoid continues with another winemaking related error, a lthough it can happen with beers and ciders too… 5. Adding sachets in the wrong order In yo

Common Errors to Avoid PT2

Most common errors PT2 In Part 2 of our Most Common Errors to avoid when making your own wine, beer or cider, we cover some more of those annoying mistakes that can ruin the whole process! Luckily, t

AYO Twists - White Wine with Elderflower

AYO Twists - Elderflower White Wine Want to play around a bit with your MYO kit? Great! We’ve com e up with a few Twists for wine, beer and cider that you can try for yourself or use as inspiration

AYO Twists - Irish Stout with Coffee

AYO Twists - Coffee Stout For the second instalment of Add Your Own Twist, we’ve gone with a clas sic combination of coffee and stout, using MYO Irish Stout kit and some good quality ground coffee/w

How Siphoning Works

How Siphoning Works Once your wine, beer or cider has finished fermenting and it comes to the ‘ex citing’ bottling stage, there are a few methods to choose from to transfer it into your bottles. T

AYO Twists - Cider with a Twist of Hops

AYO Twist - Hopped Apple Cider With more and more craft ciders popping up in your local superm arkets, you will have seen all sorts of unusual variations in an attempt to stand out from the crowd

The 'H' Word

THE H WORD ‘Homebrew’…it’s a word that conjures up all sorts of thoughts and images. Most p eople I’ve spoken to (outside of geeky beer circles) either don’t know what it means or recall s

Common Errors to Avoid

Most common errors Part 1 Whilst we aim to make your drinks-making process as simple and easy to follow as possible, there are a few areas where even the slightest mistake can affect, or even ru

Our Carbon Footprint

Our Carbon Footprint Whether it’s extinction rebellion, single use plastics or Greta Thunberg’s latest campaign, the burning issue that is Climate Change is giving Brexit a run for its money in t

MYO Rebrand

MYO Rebrand MYO went through some big changes in 2019 and unless you’ re a first time MYO customer, you’ll no doubt have noticed the new branding, packaging and indeed

Our Carbon Footprint

Posted | By

Samuel Williams

Oktober 16, 2019

Our Carbon Footprint

Whether it’s extinction rebellion, single use plastics or Greta Thunberg’s latest campaign, the burning issue that is Climate Change is giving Brexit a run for its money in the race for media attention.

As knowledge of the subject increases and the matter becomes more serious, so does the pressure on individuals and organisations to make positive changes to reduce their own carbon footprint, which can only be a good thing. Here at Make Your Own Drinks we’re no different; we’re nowhere near as efficient as we could be, but our carbon footprint now forms part of our decision-making process where it wouldn’t have even been a consideration a few years ago.

With all things there are quick-wins and much slower ones. For example, we promote the re-use of your wine, beer or cider bottles so you’re not wasting old ones, but a major change in our manufacturing process that might improve sustainability can take a lot longer to implement, plus there could be investment in machinery required and/or materials that depend on our supply chain too. Sustainability isn’t just about the environment either, it’s ensuring the future of the business to allow it to make positive, long term environmental changes too.

MYO recently changed a lot of things about the brand including our packaging. At first glance it might not look like the decisions we’ve made were driven by environmental factors, however there were a few conscious improvements we made that will reduce our carbon footprint. One was to remove the instructions leaflet and instead have basic instructions on the packaging, and full illustrated instructions online. We’ve also made video instructions which should make the process easier for a first-time user.

When we reformatted the MYO kit packaging we were left with a lot of stock of the old printed pouches which we didn’t want to waste but couldn’t keep them as they were as they had old, invalid information on them. Instead, we over-labelled them with plain labels, and used them in the new cartons. Although this meant buying more materials, it was the best solution to avoid disposing of the old pouches.

Once these pouches have all been used up, we will start using single plain pouches. Compared to the old pouches which had 2 plastic compartments on the inside, these single pouches use a lot less plastic and no ink on the outside. Additionally, by putting the pouch and the rest of the kit inside a carton which better protects the product, we have reduced the amount of damaged kits which have to be disposed of, thus reducing waste of returned items.

Make Your Own Drinks is part of a bigger company called Bevie. Bevie is a company that takes sustainability very seriously, having sustainability committees in both our UK and New Zealand offices. Since 2017, we have made a number of environmental commitments, including becoming ‘Zero Waste to Landfill’, reducing our plastic usage by 50% on site, and taking part in employee recycling initiatives such as Walkers Crisps recycling scheme.

So overall, we are fully aware that we need to do our bit as a brand and as a global company to reduce our carbon footprint and that the decisions we make will affect the environment in either a positive or negative way. We’re confident that in time it will start to become easier to make the right decisions, and that other organisations, the Government and individuals will move forward in the same direction.

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