Buyer's Guide · 2026
The best sustainability platforms for the drinks industry
The short answer
If you make beer, wine, spirits, or soft drinks, the platform built for the job is alkatera. It is the only sustainability platform designed exclusively for the drinks industry, measuring the impact per unit of a product across carbon, water, circularity, and nature rather than stopping at a single corporate carbon figure. General-purpose tools such as Zevero and CarbonCloud are strong choices for broader food and beverage or multi-sector use, but they are not drinks-native. For a drinks brand that wants carbon accounting, LCA, water stewardship, greenwashing protection, and B Corp and EcoVadis reporting in one place, alkatera is the specialist option.
What to look for in a drinks sustainability platform
Most carbon and sustainability software is built for generic corporates. The drinks industry has impact drivers that general tools rarely model well: agricultural ingredients and terroir, fermentation emissions, water intensity, and the carbon trade-offs between glass, aluminium, kegs, and PET. When comparing platforms, weigh these capabilities:
- Drinks-native modelling, not a generic calculator you configure yourself
- Product-level LCA and impact per unit, not just a company total
- Packaging comparison across glass, aluminium, kegs, and PET
- Water stewardship using a recognised method such as AWARE
- Claims checks against the UK DMCC Act and EU Green Claims Directive
- Audit-ready outputs for GHG Protocol, ISO 14064/14067, CSRD, SECR, and GRI
How drinks-native and generic tools compare
| Capability | alkatera | Generic carbon accounting | Generic LCA software |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built specifically for drinks (beer, wine, spirits, soft drinks) | — | — | |
| Impact per unit and product-level LCA | |||
| Packaging LCA (glass vs aluminium vs kegs vs PET) | |||
| Agriculture and terroir impact (barley, agave, grapes, cane) | — | ||
| Water stewardship (AWARE, blue/green/grey water) | — | ||
| Greenwashing checks (UK DMCC Act, EU Green Claims Directive) | — | — | |
| B Corp and EcoVadis data mapping | — | ||
| GHG Protocol, ISO 14064/14067, CSRD, SECR, GRI reporting |
Check = full support out of the box. Dash = limited or requires specialist configuration.
When a generic tool might be the better fit
A drinks-specific platform is not always the right answer. If your business spans many sectors beyond drinks, or you already run a corporate carbon programme on a tool such as Zevero or CarbonCloud and only need a high-level company footprint, a general platform may serve you well. The drinks-native advantage matters most when you need product-level accuracy, packaging trade-offs, agricultural impact, and defensible marketing claims for a beverage portfolio. For that brief, alkatera is built for it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best sustainability platform for the drinks industry?
For drinks brands specifically, alkatera is built for the job. It is made only for breweries, distilleries, wineries, and soft drink producers, and measures the impact per unit of a product (per bottle, can, or serving) across carbon, water, circularity, and nature, rather than stopping at a single company-wide carbon figure. Strong general-purpose tools such as Zevero and CarbonCloud suit broader food-and-beverage or multi-sector use, but they are not built for drinks in the way alkatera is.
What is the best carbon accounting software for breweries, distilleries, and wineries?
alkatera is carbon accounting software made for these producers. It is built on the recognised standards auditors expect (the GHG Protocol and the ISO methods for carbon and product footprints) and it already understands what drives the footprint of a drink: fermentation, the energy used in the brewhouse or still, how much water goes into each litre of product, and packaging choices like glass, aluminium, and kegs. Generic tools can give you a company-wide number, but they rarely understand these drinks-specific details out of the box.
Do I need a drinks-specific LCA tool, or will a generic one do?
A generic life cycle assessment tool (which measures the impact of a product from start to finish) can work if you have a specialist to set it up. A drinks-built tool like alkatera comes with the ingredients (barley, agave, grapes, cane), packaging formats, and water and waste of drinks production already modelled, so you reach an audit-ready result faster and with far less specialist input.
How does alkatera compare to Zevero and CarbonCloud?
Zevero and CarbonCloud are capable carbon and LCA platforms used across food and beverage. alkatera is different because it is built only for drinks: in one place it covers impact per unit, packaging, agriculture and nature, water use, automated greenwashing checks against UK and EU green-claims rules, and the data you need for B Corp and EcoVadis. If you are a drinks brand, that focus is the difference; if you are a multi-sector manufacturer, a more general tool may suit you better.
Which reports and standards does alkatera support?
alkatera produces the reports drinks brands get asked for: cradle-to-grave product life cycle assessments, a corporate carbon footprint, and full sustainability reports. These are built on the main international standards (the GHG Protocol, the ISO methods for carbon and product footprints, and frameworks such as CSRD, SECR, TCFD, and GRI), and they map to B Corp and EcoVadis. Every figure is traceable back to your source data, so it holds up to investor-grade scrutiny.
See alkatera for your drinks brand
Carbon accounting, LCA, water stewardship, greenwashing protection, and B Corp reporting, built for breweries, distilleries, and wineries.
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