The Sustainability Operating System for Drinks
Ever wondered what a 'sustainability operating system' actually does? It’s more than just a buzzword. From our signature digital 'Glass Box' concept to tracking the four pillars of real impact: carbon, water, waste, and land. Our founder pulls back the curtain on alkatera. Discover how we’re replacing messy spreadsheets with strategic clarity, helping drinks brands move from compliance fatigue to genuine growth. Built by the industry, for the industry. It’s time for sustainability, distilled.
Now that you've (hopefully) seen alkatera, you might be thinking, nice branding, but what exactly is a 'sustainability operating system' anyway and what on earth do they actually do.
Is it just another startup looking to take some money from me to solve a problem that I didn't know existed, or can they actually help me and is it good value for money.
Having co-founded Avallen Spirits in 2019 I'm all too aware of the huge amount of admin, and guess, work required to both sustainability into a drinks brand, the increasing reporting and legislation requirements on all companies, and a growing distrust from citizens in products claims combined with a growing desire to purchase sustainable brands.
I'm building alkatera to be the 'all in one' platform for all your sustainability needs, from carbon calculation and water measurement to greenwashing risk assessment and B Corp Certification support.
No longer will your data be sprawled across multiple spreadsheets, buried in the dark depths of your inbox, or stuck with a supplier that doesn't reply to your emails.
But Tim, you still haven't answered 'what exactly does alkatera do?'
To explain exactly what alkatera does, I want to go back to the very first aspect of the platform that I built and what every calculation and point of data relies upon. I'm going to try and not get too technical and explain it so that 'me from 1 year ago when I knew nothing about coding' can understand.
Trust, transparency, and auditability are all critical words in both business and sustainability.
The method we built at alkatera is a digital 'glass box'. An unbreakable, uneditable, undeletable box into which we place the data, methodology, and calculations, along with a unique ID number, the organisation and user number, and a time stamp.
This 'glass box' means that all calculations and data entry points in alkatera are completely transparent, tagged, and easily available for audit.
It's this critical principle that builds trust and transparency that our entire platform is built on.
I spent almost all of my career in drinks. You could, if you wanted to make me feel old, call me a veteran after decades of being behind the bar slinging cocktails in world class bars, working at Diageo with some of the most globally recognised spirits brands in the world, or co-founding my own sustainably focus brand Avallen Calvados.
It's fair to say that I have a fairly decent understanding of drinks and the specific needs, wants, and pain points of the industry.
alkatera is built on the back of this understanding and designed to be the only tool you need for all your sustainability work. Whether it's connecting up your supply chain for an accurate impact picture, or using our 'sandbox' feature so you can see the impacts of changing your bottle or supply to aid with decision making, everything we built is to help you and your brand improve, grow, and grasp the commercial opportunities.
Everything starts in the soil and the clouds. Our products are made from natures outputs and our most used ingredient is water.
So just tracking your carbon emissions misses the biggest part of the picture.
At alkatera we track 4 critical categories: Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water, waste & circularity, and land & biodiversity impact.
Each metric has a key role.
GHG emissions impact climate change, which is the biggest threat to our industry due to its disruption of agriculture and economies.
Water is our most commonly used and important ingredient. It's availability is becoming increasingly unpredictable from multi-year droughts to catastrophic floods.
Waste & Circularity leans into both our packaging design and ingredient use, reporting accurate measurements which can be used as a platform for improvement and cost savings.
And because all our products start their lives in the soil, it's absolutely critical that we measure and reduce our impact on the land and biodiversity through land use, eutrophication, acidification, and biodiversity loss.
Building alkatera around these 4 categories ensures that we are helping brands, and the wider industry, survive and thrive for the long term, not just until the next reporting period.
Data is valueless unless it's used effectively to drive meaningful change. In a time where we're flooded with data, there's absolutely no point spending time, and money, collecting more of it if it's not going to positively impact your business.
alkatera takes the data you input and turns it into valuable, easy to understand outputs that you can then use as part of your strategic planning as well as track your progress over time.
The platform can also help you manage the ever growing compliance and reporting requirements. No longer will you have to spend valuable time and resources gathering the data and writing sustainability reports. We collate the data, formulate it into a compelling narrative, leaving you to add the personalised finishing touches of storytelling and design.
And we've got you covered to navigate the new anti-greenwashing legislation coming in with both verifiable, auditable data as rock solid proof to any claims you make, but also a greenwash risk assessment tool that flags any potential risk before you publish.
We're launching in early February 2026 at a special 'Founding Members' price, so if you want to find out more, have a demo of the platform to see if in action, or sign up and get on board, then click the 'Get Access' button and we'll be in touch.