World Environment Day – Diageo India Initiatives
"Climate resilience is increasingly becoming a defining business imperative. As challenges around water security, agricultural productivity, and ecosystem health become more interconnected, organisations must move beyond siloed interventions and adopt integrated approaches that create long-term environmental and social value. At Diageo India, our grain-to-glass sustainability approach brings together water stewardship, regenerative agriculture, and climate action to help strengthen resilience across our value chain and the communities we engage with. We believe meaningful progress is driven by collective action and solutions that simultaneously support ecosystem health, community well-being, and sustainable growth."
- Srinidhi Rao, Head of Sustainability, Diageo India
Building Resilience Through Water, Agriculture and Climate Action
Climate resilience is rapidly emerging as one of the defining business and development priorities of our time. As climate-related challenges intensify, the links between water security, agricultural productivity, ecosystem health, and community well-being are becoming increasingly evident. Addressing these interconnected challenges requires organisations to move beyond isolated interventions and adopt integrated approaches that create long-term value for both people and the planet.
At Diageo India, sustainability is embedded within our growth strategy through our Spirit of Progress ESG action plan and a grain-to-glass approach that spans water stewardship, climate action, sustainable agriculture, and circularity. We recognise that the resilience of our business is intrinsically linked to the resilience of the communities, ecosystems, and agricultural value chains that support it.
Water stewardship remains central to this approach. As water stress continues to impact communities and industries alike, we are focused on improving water-use efficiency within our operations while investing in replenishment and watershed restoration beyond our sites. Since 2020, our initiatives have cumulatively replenished over 1.6 million cubic metres of water through interventions such as rainwater harvesting, aquifer recharge, watershed restoration, WASH programmes, and collective action programmes including The Godavari Initiative. These efforts are designed to strengthen long-term water security while supporting healthier ecosystems and more resilient communities.
Agriculture presents a similar opportunity to create shared value. Through our regenerative agriculture initiatives, we have worked with over 5,000 smallholder farmers to promote practices that support soil health, biodiversity, water efficiency, and climate resilience. Practices such as alternate wetting and drying, direct seeding, agroforestry, crop diversification, and improved soil management demonstrate how environmental stewardship and economic outcomes can be mutually reinforcing. A socio-economic impact assessment by the Pahlé India Foundation found that Diageo India's engagements with the agriculture sector have contributed nearly ₹4,000 crore to the farm economy, highlighting the broader value that sustainable agricultural systems can generate.
At the same time, meaningful climate action must begin within our own operations. We have transitioned all our distilleries away from coal, achieved 100% renewable thermal energy use, improved water-use efficiency in distillation by 56% since 2020, and reduced operational greenhouse gas emissions by 93% over the same period. These milestones reflect our commitment to decoupling growth from environmental impact while strengthening long-term operational resilience.
Looking ahead, the challenge for businesses is not simply to reduce their environmental footprint, but to contribute to more resilient ecosystems, more sustainable value chains, and stronger communities. Achieving this will require collaboration, innovation, and a relentless focus on measurable outcomes. We believe the most effective sustainability strategies are those that deliver shared value, creating environmental benefits while supporting livelihoods, economic opportunity, and long-term community resilience.
