Diageo

Adopting Regenerative Agriculture in Kentucky, US

By supporting TNC’s sustainable agriculture work in Kentucky, Diageo is contributing to TNC’s strategic goals of increasing cover crop acreage by 30% and edge of field acreage by 30% in critical Kentucky watersheds, two conservation practices that TNC believes have the highest potential for biodiversity and climate impact in the state. 

Diageo’s funding has supported critical work in Kentucky, including:

• Incentives for agricultural retailers to plant cover crops for farmers as an outsourced service, helping to alleviate the strained capacity that can act as a barrier to cover crops.
• Partnering with the University of Kentucky to hold farmer and landowner focus groups to better understand the barriers to edge-of-field practices, such as grass buffers, using the information to improve incentives programs.
• Farmer interviews to better understand their trusted sources of information and social networks, thereby informing development of peer learning networks or other strategic interventions that can accelerate adoption of cover crops and edge-of-field practices. 

Reducing Emissions through the Adoption of Regenerative and No-Burn Agriculture in North India

TNC-The Nature Conservancy Centre (TNCC), with support from Diageo India under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, launched a three-year regenerative agricultural program for 5,000 rice-wheat cropping system farmers in 60 villages of Punjab and Haryana. The goal of the project is to reduce agricultural carbon footprints through the adoption of regenerative and no-burn agriculture in North India and achieve key outcomes such as reduction in carbon emissions, water savings, improved soil health and enhanced income for rice-wheat farmers through the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices.

TNCC has helped in designing a programmatic intervention to address crop residue burning and to promote an integrated approach for the transition towards a regenerative food system to restore nature and support thriving communities in 60 villages in Haryana and Punjab.

TNC-The Nature Conservancy Centre (TNCC) is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization registered in India under Section 8 of The Companies Act, 2013. It was set up in 2017 to advance India’s environmental goals and to conserve its natural heritage. It is a subsidiary of The Nature Conservancy, one of the largest not-for-profit conservation organizations in the world.

The funding provided by United Spirits Limited (Diageo) to TNCC was in INR. for the work in India.

Restoring Watersheds

Committed to participating in collective action with other key parties like government, NGOs and companies in each of its 20 priority basins by 2030 to address shared water challenges collectively, Diageo engages with TNC to make this vision a reality. TNC’s aim is to help mainstream nature-based solutions (NBS) in companies’ operations and supply chains.

Over the past three years, TNC has collaborated with Diageo to conduct assessments of key water basins, identifying significant catchment risks, existing water initiatives and projects and local and national government policies. Based on these findings, TNC has recommended different approaches for Diageo’s collective action involvement: either joining existing collective action initiatives or establishing new ones. This has been successfully delivered in basins in Brazil, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Turkey and Uganda and is currently ongoing in South Africa and Tanzania.

Knowing that collective action is essential to achieving water security, Diageo, as a member of the Water Resilience Coalition, volunteered to be the Basin Champion for the Upper Tana Nairobi Watershed, where they are supporting the Upper Tana Nairobi Water Fund. Diageo is also Basin Champion for the Santiago Lerma and Godavari basins in Mexico and India, respectively.