When we built the distillery, we installed energy and water efficiency measures, uncommon in the industry at the time:

• Thermal Vapour Recompression (TVR) systems were installed on both stills. This allowed for the recycling of 35% of the energy back into the stills.

• A heat recovery condenser on the wash still allows for all the energy rejected by the wash still to be reused elsewhere in the process.

• We preheat of the feed stock to both stills by utilising waste heat from elsewhere in the process.

• A hammer mill, mash conversion vessel and mash filter system as opposed to more traditional roller mill and lauter tun system. This reduced the water consumption, increased the raw material extraction efficiency and increased the resultant wash alcohol strength leading to a more energy efficient distillation process.

• The cooling function at the distillery is a recirculating cooling tower which reduced the water demand of the distillery.

• A gas economiser on the boiler which increased the boiler’s efficiency.

• We have secured Fife grown barley from Kingdom Farming, Balgonie Estate in our brands since day one, recognising our brand motto of ‘Fife Grown, Fife distilled, Fife Matured’

• Muntons have been our provider of malted barley (apart from peated) since 2015, due to their strong sustainability credentials. When they opened a peated malt site, they then provided 100% of our malted barley, peated and unpeated.

• We supply all our co products (pot and ale and draff) to a local Anaerobic Digester where it is converted to bio methane which is put back into the grid. Regrettably it is not commercially feasible to use this gas as the distilleries main fuel source as the subsidy received by the AD plant would not be transferable to the gas supplied to the distillery. The digestate from this AD plant is spread on local farmland.

• We built some of our warehouses with rain capture, which is then fed to a pond for storage. In addition, we have located the distillery next to two springs. We need to analyse the pond water (volume and quality) to understand what processing would be required to make it production ready. We currently use 100% mains water, but we know that with increased likelihood of drought there may be water restrictions and therefore want to ensure we have adequate supply.

• We had tried to purchase Fife grown Rye since day one, but this was not possible, so we used 100% Scottish Rye initially.  From 2019 we now source 100% Fife-grown rye for our brands.

• We commissioned our first carbon footprint analysis. With assistance from Scottish Enterprise, we commissioned Eunomia to carry out an initial carbon footprint calculation in 2019, based on the 2018 distillation year.

• Findings showed that our malt was responsible for approximately 56% of our carbon footprint, and 32% from burning gas.

• Always looking for opportunities to make more energy related changes, we switched our electricity supply to 100% renewable energy towards the end of this year.

• In this year we could start to compare our energy efficiency with an industry average. In this comparison we found we used 40% less energy per litre of pure alcohol. Note this is from a Chivas Bros Vibe Awards Case Study 2020.

• The carbon footprint report was updated in 2020 to account for the switch to renewable energy.

• From the report, the growing of barley was a higher proportion of the greenhouse gas emissions than the malting of the barley. This is due in large part to the emissions related to the production and application of nitrogen-based fertilisers. Therefore, we sponsored research in the Yield Enhancement Network Net Zero programme to better understand where the emissions come from in a field, and how they can be reduced.

• With 32% of our greenhouse gas emissions coming from burning gas for distillation, we needed to look for alternatives. Therefore, we commissioned a hydrogen feasibility study with ARUP, who looked at using hydrogen as our primary fuel source, displacing natural gas. This research led to our decision to switch to green hydrogen in the future.

• We switched our peated malt supply to Munton’s, who are actively reducing their greenhouse gas emissions in the malting process

• We commissioned a heat pump feasibility study which looked at recovering the waste heat from the final condenser on the spirit still. This is currently on hold as the impact was relatively low in reducing the carbon footprint, and the economics still had to be fully understood.

• From this year onwards we sponsor two bee hives on our distillery grounds, managed by Kinross based Webster Honey. We want to boost biodiversity in the distillery grounds, and so this is one of the first measures we will take on site

• Triggered by the findings in the carbon footprint report, and with a greater understanding of the need to support wider environmental aims in agriculture, we sponsored a cover crop trial at Balgonie Estate through Scottish Agronomy. This research is designed to see whether cover crops can reduce nitrogen fertiliser use in subsequent cereal crop, improve soil health and reduce carbon footprint.

• The UK government awarded funding to 11 successful green hydrogen projects under its first hydrogen allocation round (HAR1) – and InchDairnie Distillery was one of them. Scottish Power would provide us with a green hydrogen supply from 2027

• Electric charging units were installed on site at the distillery

• We installed a Bosch hydrogen ready boiler, with a deaerator for increased efficiency (by an expected 15%), and reduced chemical use. Securing a green hydrogen supply is complex, and our anticipated date of supply was 2026, then 2027, and now it is unknown due to currently prohibitive contractual issues that we need to work through.

• Recognising the increased need for a wider portfolio of sustainability related activities beyond looking at energy and emissions, we employed a Sustainability Manager.

• We were delighted to win a Fife Business Award for Sustainability & Net Zero, recognising our early and ongoing efforts to be an energy efficient distillery.

• We undertook a double materiality assessment to understand our impacts on the environment and people, and their impact on our business

• We published a carbon footprint report for the year 2023-2024, covering the distillery and our then sister company, MacDuff International

• We are developing a semi-automated data collection method for greenhouse gases in the future to improve efficiencies

InchDairnie Carbon Footprint Report 2023-2024

• Based on our carbon footprint report for 2023-2024, we created our Climate Strategy

• We re-assessed our water use and have put new a new water meter on our wash backs to understand whether there are more water efficiencies to be made

• We are one of the founding members of the Peat Restoration Foundation, an industry wide project aiming to restore degraded peatlands in Scotland

• At InchDairnie our aim is to restore more peat than we take for our peated Single Malt, KinGlassie.

• We launched a 5-year cover crop trial with Balgonie Estates and clients of Kingdom Farming – our trusted barley and rye supplier in Fife – and Muntons, our forward-thinking maltster.

• As an exciting end to the year, we were very proud to win the Drinks Business Green Award for Renewable Energy Implementation

We are proud to say that in March 2026, we achieved B Corp certification.

For more information see here: https://www.inchdairniewhisky.com/b-corp/