Tycoon Dr. Andrew Tan’s global spirits company Emperador Inc. (EMI) is integrating smart technologies and renewable energy (RE) initiatives into its international operations, particularly in Spain and the United Kingdom (UK), to further champion sustainability, innovation, and environment stewardship.

“These initiatives reinforce our strong commitment to integrating sustainability and environmental stewardship across our entire value chain,” said Emperador Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Winston Co said.

He added that, “While we continue to pursue growth, we also aim to align our operations to help preserve natural resources and promote care for the environment in areas where we are present worldwide.”

These initiatives are also aligned with the sustainability commitment of Emperador’s parent company, Alliance Global Group Inc. (AGI), under its SustainAGIlity program.

In a statement, Emperador said subsidiary Grupo Emperador Spain (GES) is targeting to achieve sustainable production by pioneering advanced environment-friendly processes and technologies in its vineyard operations in Spain.

These include intelligent irrigation systems and humidity and salinity sensors to optimize grape growth and production while reducing water consumption.

The company is also deploying drones to efficiently monitor vineyard usage, while employing falconry as a form of natural pest control and minimize the use of chemicals.

As part of its carbon neutrality goals, Emperador has deployed electric forklifts to replace combustion forklifts.

Solar panels have also been installed as the company shifts towards stronger reliance on RE. Increased recovery of essential biogases is also being done and monitored during the wastewater treatment process.

In the UK, the company is implementing more renewable energy programs to further advance its carbon neutrality goals.

Emperador’s subsidiary Whyte & Mackay has replaced its traditional boiler at the Jura Distillery with a state-of-the-art biomass boiler to significantly reduce its carbon emissions by about 5,000 tons every year.

At the Invergordon distillery in Scotland, the company has transitioned to a 100-percent carbon-neutral energy supply powered by wood pellet RE.

Emperador is also utilizing a bioenergy center to further process distillery co-products and create biomethane gas, which will offset about 20,900 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by 2026.

In the Philippines, Emperador is extending significant efforts to reduce carbon emissions by utilizing RE sources.

In 2023, the company installed a two megawatt-peak (MWp) solar photovoltaic system on its glass plant, which generates about 2.5-million kilowatt-hour (kWh) of clean energy per year. This has helped reduce the company’s carbon footprint by around 1,929 metric tons (MT) of CO2e annually.

Another 640 kilowatt-peak (kWp) solar facility is also set to be installed in one of Emperador’s manufacturing plants, which can generate more than 800,000 kWh of RE every year. This will help further cut down the company’s carbon footprint by 593.12 MT of CO2e.