Our 2030 Sustainability and Responsibility (S&R) roadmap, ‘Good Times from a Good Place,’ is integrated into all Pernod Ricard activities, from grain to glass. It is a key business driver and is proving an important lever to accelerate transformation, by driving innovation, building purposeful brands, attracting talents and bringing to life our vision of a more convivial world.
VANESSA WRIGHT,
CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER
OUR S&R ROADMAP WAS LAUNCHED IN 2019, WHAT PROGRESS HAVE WE MADE SINCE THEN?
Vanessa Wright - More than just progress, we’ve seen a real acceleration in all four of our key pillars (see pp. 38-39) thanks to the drive and commitment of everyone at Pernod Ricard. We’ve met all of our 2020 environmental targets for CO2 reduction, water consumption and waste disposal, and we’ve launched a number of initiatives to build a more inclusive culture and pro-mote responsible consumption. The new global Diversity & Inclusion roadmap ‘Live without labels’ and our partnership with UNITAR(1) to educate drivers about the risks of drinking and driving are two good examples of this. Our S&R roadmap has been instrumental in responding to major environmental and social shifts and focus-ing the business on what matters most to our consumers and other stakeholders.
WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS KEY TO THE SUCCESSFUL DELIVERY OF OUR S&R AMBITION?
Vanessa Wright - As ‘Créateurs de convivialité’, we believe in the power of human connections and bringing people together in a meaningful way to unlock the magic and strengthen what we do collectively. That’s why we believe in a collaborative approach that includes all stakeholders from across our value chain – employees, farmers, suppliers, partners and communities. Our roadmap was developed through extensive consultation and collaboration between teams, external partners and experts, and is supported by multidisciplinary projects, most often carried out with the help of local or international organisations. We know that by sharing knowledge, challenging each other and trialling solutions together, we can learn and improve. We also have a strong S&R governance in place which was reinforced this year with the creation of a dedicated Board Committee on S&R, led by our Independent Lead Director.
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE CHALLENGES AHEAD?
Vanessa Wright - Our S&R roadmap is instrumental in addressing consumer needs and material risks facing the Group today such as climate change and biodiversity loss. But everything is moving very quickly, so we need to continue to be agile and challenge ourselves to reach our targets even sooner. This year for example, we accelerated our carbon reduction targets with a commitment to reaching net zero in scopes 1 & 2 by 2030 at the latest and in scope 3 by 2050. Our work on future scenarios has helped confirm that our strategy addresses all the key risks and opportunities facing the Group, including securing our supply chain (especially raw agricultural materials), advancing circularity, ensuring the local relevance of our S&R roadmap and strengthening our preventive actions against the harmful use of alcohol.
(1) The United Nations Institute for Training and Research.