Sustainability banner

Our waters only come from sustainable, natural and renewable sources. We recognised early the importance of environmental management and sustainability. Taking too much groundwater can have disastrous and irreversible consequences on streams and wetlands, as well as the habitats of flora and fauna.

We take daily measurements on all our catchments of both rainfall and groundwater levels to make sure we have long term records of our impact and that we are never over abstracting. At our Ochils site, we have taken this a stage further by measuring the flows from the streams and evapotranspiration to provide a full water balance. We currently harvest just 3% of the annual rainfall on our catchment area and are committed to responsible environmental management and continually improving our practices.

Infographic - 3% rainfall

Constant eye on improvements

At each of our sites we have a team with direct responsibility for the management and protection of the catchment areas. These teams report into the Group to share learning and experience.

In 2008 at our Ochils site, we installed an ‘Air Recovery System’ which reduced annual energy usage by 1.25m Kilowatts. More recently we have installed a reed bed system to filter and return water at our Beacons site.

Hands off flow

Many licences held by UK producers are subject to ‘Hands-off Flow’ restrictions. During periods of drought the Environment Agency can force a manufacturer to reduce or stop their activities completely. With a current annual production capacity of over 600 million litres, we have permits from local environmental agencies to sustainably abstract a total of 2.2 billion litres.

*At Ochils site

In addition Highland Spring Group is part of the following initiatives:

– As a member of SEDEX, a not for profit membership organisation dedicated to driving improvements in responsible and ethical business practices in global supply chains, we work closely with our suppliers on this initiative. We are also working with other suppliers across our supply chain to strongly encourage them to join.

– Highland Spring Group are a member of the UK Plastics Pact facilitated by WRAP

– As part of our commitment to promoting biodiversity and heathy eco-systems, we have a three year partnership with Plan Bee, which enables hives to be located on our protected catchment area and approx. 10,000 bees to pollinate