Starting the New Year Mindfully
Did you feel the same way? Since March last year, and especially during the lockdowns, we found ourselves holding a product with real intention and taking a close look at it. How does this company actually operate — and do they belong among the "good ones"? Perhaps you recently even held one of our products in your hands and asked yourself the very same questions. We have answers for you!
Reducing the carbon footprint in the production process is like tidying up: once you start, you don't stop until the job is done. In that sense, we've been tidying up for nearly 30 years — and the big clean-up is far from over: we will continue working to handle nature's resources as carefully as we possibly can. In this article, we share four measures that make our Farthofer spirits even more sustainable, above and beyond being Bio.
What are you personally proud of? In which area were you able to reduce your carbon footprint in your business or at home in 2020? We look forward to exchanging ideas — and welcome your suggestions too — and wish you a great start to a challenging year. May the only thing contagious in 2021 be our laughter. With that in mind, all the very best to you.
Carbon Footprint of Our Bio Spirits
Reducing Water Consumption
It's remarkable just how much water is needed for cooling alone at the distillery! We'd been thinking for some time that something had to change — and in 2020 we finally took action.
Together with a plumber, we achieved — through innovative structural measures — a reduction of more than 50% in water consumption by capturing the cooling water and now using it in a cascading system. Despite the new commissioning of the Malzwelt, our water consumption remained the same.
Reducing waste through recycling
The things that end up on your doorstep! "Where do we put all these cardboard boxes", we asked ourselves one day. Into the shredder press it is! We now also shred cardboard from suppliers into filling material for our own distillates. This means less waste is generated.
Preserving soil and green spaces
Compared to the rest of Europe, Austria is among the unfortunate front-runners when it comes to the sealing of precious soil and green spaces. Every single day, 13 hectares of land in our country are permanently paved over!
But what do you do when you need more storage space? We too were running out of capacity and needed a larger warehouse. Rather than building a new one, we looked for an existing space: since September 2020, part of our whiskies has been maturing in the magnificent, perfectly temperature-controlled cellars of Stift Seitenstetten. A small footnote that we find particularly wonderful: our whiskies are ageing directly beneath the splendid marble hall where the Benedictine virtues are depicted — among them, "moderation".
Sustainable heating
A distillery consumes not only a great deal of water but also a lot of heat for firing the stills. Since 2003 we have been growing our heating material, Miscanthus, and since 2009 we have been making use of the highly efficient Miscanthus grass.
We grow it ourselves on 10 hectares of land. Before the Miscanthus harvest, dry leaves fall to the ground — much like with grain crops. We leave these leaves to the soil organisms so they can transform them into valuable humus. Humus is, after all, a precious carbon store: Organically managed soils sequester between 9 and 14 tonnes more carbon per hectare than conventionally managed soils.
