Arbikie Distillery's Nadar gin is made from distilling peas rather than wheat, and according to experts from Abertay University, each 70cl bottle cuts carbon emissions by 2.2kg. This carbon emission cut is achieved because peas – like other legumes – 'fix' their own nitrogen from the air (eliminating the need for carbon-intensive fertilisers to be applied), while the waste products from the distillation process can be used as animal feed, reducing the Distillery's waste. Researchers say the process has “great potential to scale the innovation out to other alcoholic beverages, such as vodka and beer, and to scale it up to industrial bioethanol (biofuel) production, with considerable global mitigation potential, particularly in terms of climate change and nutrient leakage”. Switching to biofuels is essential in tackling climate change as our use of fuels and materials, as well as our waste of such materials, is what produces large amounts of greenhouse gases, often for no particular reason when these waste products are not recycled.
