Bourbon for Good: The Maker’s Mark B Corp Journey
Maker's Mark knows that nature is at the core of its products, and the brand is committed to social and environmental initiatives.
Being a big company doesn't preclude an enterprise from also being a family business. For Rob Samuels, managing director of Maker's Mark Distillery, being the grandson of the brand's founders, and the eighth generation of his family to make whiskey in Kentucky, means bourbon is in his blood.
And while Maker's Mark is now part of the larger Suntory Global Spirits group, this deep-rooted family legacy coincides with Maker's Mark incorporating the environment into the brand's DNA.
When Samuels' grandparents first purchased property for Maker's Mark around 70 years ago, “the reason they chose the site was because of nature,” he says. In particular, the property has its own water source.
Not only does a pastoral landscape make a good backdrop for visiting a distillery — Samuels says his grandmother is credited with creating bourbon tourism — but it also sits at the core of what Maker's Mark sells.
“Ultimately, whiskey is agricultural, and the flavor comes from nature,” says Samuels. “And when it comes to ingredients and nature and understanding where the flavor comes from, pretty quickly you get to the ethics of it all.”
Sustainable Flavor
For Maker's Mark, creating more flavorful products also means trying to improve environmental initiatives.
Over the past five years, Maker's Mark has planted experimental, modern wheat varietals on its property, explains Samuels. And the brand is working with two wheat-breeding experts to try to create ingredients that taste better while being better for the environment.
“The North Star is how do we push flavor boundaries and how do we create an ecosystem where the farming community can [grow] grain that's at the height of flavor and that's also more sustainable,” says Samuels.
Part of that means engaging in regenerative farming practices. The company's Star Hill Farm is the world's first distillery to earn the Regenified Tier 3 certification (out of five tiers).
Meeting the rigorous benchmarks of this type of certification isn't just a box-ticking exercise. Maker's Mark's comprehensive efforts include working with “soil scientists to actually prove at the biological level that this more organism-rich soil can push flavor, have a competitive yield, and minimize the impact on nature," says Samuels.
This agricultural focus also ties into innovation along the lines of grain-growing practices feeding into future releases of whiskeys, for instance.
B Corp Certification
In addition to having a regenerative certification, Maker's Mark also became a certified B Corp at the end of 2021.
While it's not the first whiskey maker to achieve B Corp certification, Maker's Mark claims to be the largest distillery in the world that's a B Corp, as well as being the first in Kentucky's Bourbon Country to achieve B corporation certification.
The major milestone of becoming a B Corp requires a high level of positive practices across areas like the environment, governance, and community, as measured through the B Impact Assessment. It also involves making “a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders,” explains B Lab, the nonprofit behind B Corps.
The Maker's Mark team's tireless efforts to achieve B corp certification tie back to the brand's founding vision of not only creating a great product but also being committed to community and philanthropic efforts, says Samuels.
“We want to be a brand that points out into the world and is a force for good, beyond our direct benefit,” he adds.
Making Its Mark
To be a force for good, Maker's Mark has been engaging in several social and environmental initiatives that can help create a more sustainable future.
From an emissions standpoint, Maker's Mark has started by measuring its Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions, as reported in its B Corp assessment. Parent company Suntory Global Spirits has set environmental performance targets such as reducing Scope 1-3 emissions by 30% by 2030 and hit net-zero carbon emissions throughout its value chain by 2040.
Meanwhile, the business has invested in areas like a solar array that offsets the energy usage of all 50 of the brand's warehouses. Maker's Mark will soon extend that, with the long-term goal of being completely energy-independent, says Samuels.
While that requires an upfront investment that's at least more expensive in the short term, “we think it's the right thing to do,” he adds.
Other projects include working with partners like the University of Kentucky (UK) for the world's first comprehensive white oak genome mapping effort and developing the world's largest repository of the American white oak species, as a UK press release notes. American white oak trees are used to create barrels to age Maker's Mark bourbon.
“It will be a research forest for the health, vibrancy, and flavor understanding of American white oak for the next 100 years,” says Samuels.
Maker's Mark has also engaged in environmental practices like expanding its glass recycling capabilities as part of its zero-landfill initiative. Rather than shipping bottles back to the manufacturer as it had in the past, the brand has been using an on-site pulverizer to create a sand-like material. That material can then be used in many ways, such as for the distillery's on-site trail system, as well as for public garden projects.
This recycling program has also recently included a pilot partnership with Kroger to collect glass from consumers for pulverizing and then re-use, explains Samuels.
Ultimately, joining the growing global movement to protect our shared environment, along with staying true to brand values like engaging in community focused efforts, can help create a more sustainable economy while leading to long-term business success. Efforts to preserve natural resources, for example, are critical for the long-term viability of a brand like Maker's Mark, whose products are centered on key natural resources like soft red winter wheat.
“It's very beneficial, not just because it's the right thing to do, but we think it makes us a more sustainable company into the future,” says Samuels.
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