Spirits giant Bacardi Limited announced it has built three new warehouses at its rum distillery in Cataño, Puerto Rico using recycled concrete. The waste was derived from the demolition of six older structures on the 127-acre campus.
“We took all the rubble from the demolition and reused it as backfill material in building our new warehouses,” says Julio Torruella, project director for Bacardi in Puerto Rico. “This was a zero-waste project designed to reuse steel and concrete, rather than sending material to the landfill.”
Bacardi called it “a major cost- and environment-saving move” as construction crews recycled more than 2,300 tons of rubble, amounting to 153 truckloads of concrete, eliminating the need for the company to buy equivalent new material for construction.
Speaking of eliminating waste, Bacardi aims to achieve zero waste to landfill at all of its production sites by 2022. As part of its “Good Spirited” global sustainability program, the company has set specific goals in the following areas:
- Sourcing: The company will “strive to obtain all raw materials and packaging from sustainably sourced, renewable or recycled materials, while maintaining or enhancing the economic status of growers and suppliers.” Bacardi says it aims to obtain 40 percent of the sugarcane-derived products used to make its rum from certified-sustainable sources by 2017 and aims to reach 100 percent by 2022.
- Packaging: By 2017, Bacardi plans to reduce the weight of its packaging and point-of-sale materials by 10 percent with a goal of 15 percent reduction by 2022.
- Operational Efficiencies: Bacardi has a 2017 goal to cut water use by 55 percent and GHG emissions by 50 percent.
Last year, Bacardi had announced significant progress in its Corporate Social Responsibility report — nearly 50 percent drop in water usage and roughly 33 percent reductions in both energy use and GHG emissions in the last six years. The company sais this was achieved through a combination of conservation measures that included more efficient equipment and greater use of renewable energy sources.
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Published May 2, 2014 3am EDT / 12am PDT / 8am BST / 9am CEST