Our previous challenges

Water efficiency

To improve water efficiency in both our own operations and those of our manufacturing suppliers, we’re looking for solutions that will bring step change improvements in water efficiency across our own and our manufacturers’ water use. To help us reduce our water use by an average of 30% by 2030, we are looking for solutions that will bring improvements in water efficiency across our brewing, distilling, malting, and packaging processes, including wastewater treatment and water recycling.

Potential solutions could include but are not limited to:

• Monitoring and measurement tools such as connected sensors and software technologies
• Membrane filtration systems, softeners, activated carbon filters, ion exchange
• Cooling tower water capture, recycling, and reuse
• Wort cooling, tunnel pasteurisers, bottle washers, vacuum pumps
• Waterless systems
• Continuous loop water management systems
• Greywater recycling systems

What is not included:

Wastewater upcycling (this is covered in the Wastewater upcycling challenge below); On-farm water solutions.

Wastewater upcycling

To maximise the value of Diageo’s waste streams, we’re looking for solutions that can be applied to Diageo’s distillation and brewing operations to upcycle wastewater into value-add products or services. This could benefit Diageo’s supply chain, other industries, local communities, or nature.  We’re particularly interested in solutions, including modular solutions that can be adapted to differing concentrations of compounds, those that can be applied to industrial processes to increase concentration for easier and more efficient extraction of value-add components, and those that are applicable to different geographies, including remote locations.

Potential Solutions could include but are not limited to:

• Wastewater sludge pyrolysis
• Anaerobic digestion
• Fertiliser production from biosolids and sludge
• Biological, membrane, electrochemical and evaporation treatment
• High-carbon feedstock solutions
• Heat recovery from wastewater

What is not included:

Efficient wastewater treatment (this is covered in the Agricultural water impact challenge below).

Water-efficient ingredients

To minimise the climate and water risks of the ingredients we source and use, we are looking for new and complementary blue-sky technology solutions to support our growth ambition while preserving existing agricultural supply chains. The aim is to find additional sources of ingredients with reduced water usage and water quality effects. Ingredients of interest are rice (India), aniseed and grapes (Turkey), agave (Mexico), wheat (UK), maize (USA), barley (Scotland/Ireland), sugarcane (India and Africa), sorghum (Kenya & Nigeria) and neutral spirit geographies: USA, India. 

Potential Solutions could include but are not limited to:

• Alternative, novel crop production methods such as ocean farming
• Alternative ingredient production processes such as precision fermentation, cellular agriculture, or molecular farming
• Alternative feedstocks for ingredient production, including waste streams
• Controlled environment agriculture solutions

What is not included:

We are not looking for regenerative agriculture solutions as part of this challenge, although we do recognise the interdependencies.

Agricultural water impact

To improve water efficiency in agricultural operations, we are looking for solutions that will help us reduce our water impact and make our existing agricultural processes more efficient. We will also consider solutions that indirectly target water usage by reducing the need for water at any step of the crop’s lifecycle. Where we irrigate, we are looking for solutions to improve water efficiency.  

Potential Solutions could include but are not limited to:

• Environmental monitoring and sensor technologies for on-farm water efficiency and water quality
• Water-efficient crop inputs and precision tools
• Irrigation technologies that minimise watershed impact
• Crop-level water monitoring and management solutions

What is not included:

Solutions that are not geared towards agriculture (may be applicable to the Water Efficiency challenge instead).

Improving water use across the hospitality sector

To improve the water use across the hospitality sector, we are looking for creative solutions in pubs, restaurants, bars and hotels to reduce water use while preserving or enhancing the customer experience. This includes shaking cocktails, serving drinks, glassware and ice to chill before filling, etc. These may be technology-based, innovation or other solutions – surprise us!

What is not included:

Offtrade (retail sales) solutions (may be applicable to the other Water challenges).

Soil Moisture

The issues of food security and climate change are particularly severe for Africa as much of the continent is drylands with predominantly rain-fed farming systems. This is made even more difficult to manage with predictions of a 20% reduction in southern Africa rainfall by 2100 and 10% for other dry regions including Mexico. Inconsistent rainfall and poor soil moisture retention are some of the main challenges affecting smallholder farmers and can impact their ability to hit expected yields. This is further worsened by lack of timely soil moisture data. Soil water holding capacity needs to improve to maximise productivity which will enable sustained growth in both farmers’ communities and our brands.

Soil Carbon

Carbon is the chemical backbone of life on earth: it helps give soil its water-retention capacity, structure, and fertility. Soils with a high carbon content tend to be healthier, more resilient to weather-related crop failure and provide better yields through improved nutrient uptake. To accelerate to a low carbon world and become sustainable by design, building economic, environmental and social resilience within smallholder communities, we need to support better soil health through adequate measuring, modelling, interpretation and monitoring of changes to soils at a biological, chemical and physical level.

Soil Biodiversity

Diageo is on a vital journey to better measure and manage our global impact on the natural environment. As a global leader in beverage alcohol, we have a dependency on agricultural and, to a lesser extent, forest commodities, we recognise that our activities have the potential to contribute to impacts on nature and biodiversity. We endeavour to measure and report our impact, mitigate the risks and work towards a positive environmental contribution. We are actively engaged in the Science Based Targets for Nature initiative and seek to apply the emerging standard to our supply chain to better understand and manage our nature-related impacts, dependencies, and risks. We need technical solutions to support us in measuring, reporting, and verifying our biodiversity impacts across smallholder value chains.