With an increased awareness of our impact on nature, both around the world and in our backyard, being green is now part of business as usual for GWS. We are working hard to make sure our impact, or “footprint”, is as light as possible. However, when we talk about sustainability, there’s a long list of things we could do to improve, so we’re prioritizing to achieve big wins in a short amount of time.

Environment and Climate change to one side; it makes good business sense to be efficient with our production and battling processes. To ensure we are doing the best we can, we assess alternative energy sources from time to time as well as ensuring a regular energy audit is done to see where improvements in efficiency can be made.

We’re constantly looking to reduce our water use. This year we will be starting a cleaner production project to see where we can streamline the process and further reduce our water use.

Through lightweighting, we’re using way less plastic in our bottles. We are also working hard with other brand owners to develop effective product stewardship schemes so that we can all dispose of our packaging properly. New material that are more environmentally friendly are also coming onto the market. When the manufacturers, consumers and recyclers are ready to use these materials. (full life cycle approach), you can be assured that GWS will be in there.

In-house recycling is now an integral part of our business. As of the end of 2010 we are recycling around 85% of our waste every month. Of course, we can always do better so we will be aiming for an even better recycling rate this year, while at the same time looking to reduce out the total waste (including recyclables). Of course, the hierarchy of the ‘3Rs’ is recognized so if we can reduce or reuse first, then we will.