Earth Day and Sustainability: How Walker’s Is Protecting the Planet

For over 127 years, Walker’s Shortbread has been the world’s leading purveyor of all-butter shortbread. The company continues to make significant sustainability strides within the Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPG) industry, championing ethical sourcing, packaging innovation, and waste reduction. Walker’s Shortbread remains dedicated to strong social and environmental policies that uphold international product safety standards while protecting both the environment and its workforce.

With Earth Day here, it’s the perfect time to put Walker’s Shortbread’s environmentally conscious and sustainable initiatives in the spotlight. Here are just a few of our laurels.

Water Use

According to the US EPA, the average US household can waste as much as 180 gallons of water per week, which is nearly 10,000 gallons per year! With an estimated 128 million households in the country, that’s over a billion wasted gallons per year - and that’s just domestic.

For our part, we’re engaged in numerous activities to help curtail water waste, and engaged in a variety of company operations to help ensure that water is used efficiently.

Walker’s has a company-wide water-use monitoring program. Water use is recorded, monitored weekly and measured against production figures. Processing areas are outfitted with fitted timers, auto-taps and spray nozzles to help ensure minimal waste. We’ve even implemented a toilet flush reduction program.

In addition, we’ve ensured full compliance with the Scottish government-controlled wastewater regulations.

Sustainable and Renewable Energy

It’s hard to determine an average carbon footprint for a company because companies vary so widely in size as well as in the nature of their operations so their environmental impacts can’t be easily compared or averaged.

Even so, for an individual in the United States, Nature.org estimates an average annual carbon footprint of about 16 tons which contributes to greenhouse gas concentration and rising global temperatures that have disastrous effects on people around the world.

Walker’s Shortbread is a member of the CCA, or Climate Change Agreement, and has been since it began in 1998. We’ve reduced our carbon emissions by 13% since then. We even changed our fuel from oil to gas to cut emissions.

We monitor electricity usage in half-hour intervals in order to identify areas for improvement, and have made numerous improvements over the years. Among these, we’ve replaced aging boilers with more efficient modern units, integrated a heat-recovery system into one of our air compressors, and outfitted all air compressors with variable speed drives.

We’ve implemented new energy efficiency control systems, not only in the form of new equipment and controls, but in retrofits to existing equipment - for instance, motor inverters.

Walker’s Shortbread has also invested considerably in solar energy. We’ve installed 80 solar panels on the roof of our newest facility, representing a 25-year investment that’s capable of producing 25,000 kWh of clean, green energy per year. That’s equivalent to a reduction of 8 tons of carbon per year.

We’re also in the process of outfitting our facilities with energy-efficient LED lights, which use 50% less energy than conventional lighting, and equally as importantly, need to be replaced less frequently.

Sustainable Packaging

Packaging is another area in which many companies waste materials, but perhaps most concerningly, the overwhelming majority of consumer packaging ends up in landfills.

Tragically, Americans produce nearly 300 million tons of garbage annually. While that is not all in the form of consumer packaging, it is a big source.

For Walker’s part, we’re doing what we can to reduce the waste, which comes not only in the form of consumer refuse generation, but from the initial manufacturing. Over 50% of the plastic used in our packaging contains recycled content and is itself fully recyclable, and the cardboard we use in packaging is FSC-certified. Where possible, we’ve minimized the gauge of film, cardboard, plastic, and tin plate used in our packaging, with the overall aim of reducing both primary and secondary packaging.

Every Little Bit Counts

Walker’s Shortbread is also proud of our other achievements which include a variety of sustainability initiatives, of which the following are only a few: 

• We use no GMOs, hydrogenated fats, artificial colors or preservatives.
• We use sustainable palm oil and no animal fats are used in any of our products.
• We use ethically-sourced dairy and cocoa; all of the butter we use in our shortbread comes from free-range, grass-fed cows free of bovine growth hormones.
• We support local trade and source local ingredients everywhere possible.

How You Can Make a Difference

Investing in a brighter, healthier, and more sustainable future is not just for big businesses. Each individual can make an impact, too. Here are just a few of the ways you can support a more sustainable, cleaner future

• Pick up trash in your local community and reduce your use of single-use plastic and paper goods.
• Recycle paper, glass and aluminum where possible.
• Reduce your carbon footprint by driving less, carpooling more, and reducing your use of your home’s HVAC system.
• Invest in energy-efficient lighting, such as LEDs, for your home.
• Invest in reusable plastic bags and water bottles instead of single-use options.
• Start an organic garden and recycle household scraps by composting.
• Buy organic, local food; opt for plant-based options.
• Minimize or eliminate your use of weedkillers and pesticides.
• Use less water or invest in water-conserving fixtures for your home.

Remember, these are just a few of the ways you can support Earth Day and a more sustainable lifestyle in general. There are countless more, but here’s a great place to start!

Rooted in Speyside, Committed to the Earth

Our home in Speyside is at the heart of everything we do. With more than 95% of our waste recycled and ongoing efforts to reduce plastic, we’re committed to protecting the place that inspires us. This Earth Day, we celebrate Scotland at its finest and our responsibility to preserve it.