Paradiso Sustainability Summit

Ketel One Vodka and Paradiso brought to life their shared vision of cocktails that not only taste good, but do good.

This partnership aims to connect passionate leaders in hospitality with audiences and communities to build skills, share knowledge and empower each other to make a positive impact with cocktails at the heart and answer some of the most pressing challenges facing the industry. The summit was one event in an ongoing movement to move the cocktail forward, supported by talent around the globe and the momentum of evolving comprehension of how bars and restaurants can innovate to deliver high-end experiences with lessened carbon impact.

Sustainability Summit, the Paradiso event that debuted in 2022 and quickly established itself as a hub for the exchange of experiences and tools aimed at making the industry more sustainable, is by founder and owner of Paradiso, Giacomo Giannotti, and his team, the annual event being held in the energetic city of Barcelona.

Giacomo Giannotti, founder and owner of Paradiso

Thanks to the success of the first edition this year the format will be repeated, improved and extended; get ready for three immersive days of events, partnerships, seminars, activities and many other surprises.

Ketel One has challenged the bars to create Ketel One cocktails Garnished with Good, using their unique philosophies and communities to make a positive impact, whether that is sourcing from neighbourhood producers, upcycling ingredients or renewing the natural environment. The summit included guest shifts and masterclasses with exceptional guests from all over the world::

• Tato Giovannoni from Floreria Atlantico, Buenos Aires
• Paul Aguilar from Himkok, Oslo
• Alex Francis from Little Red Door, Paris
• Agung Prabowo from Penicillin, Hong Kong
• Matt Whiley from Re, Sydney

Five of the world's leading figures in the bar industry shared their experiences and approach to sustainability during the three-day event.

Penicillin, Re, Himkok and Little Red Door are all winners of the 50 Best Bars Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award, for their creative and determined commitment to sustainable practices in and around their cocktails and bars. At this the 2023 Sustainability Summit, attendees learnt inventive solutions for sustainability challenges from these bars. Re, in Sydney, is one such bar that has partnered with Ketel One to enable the Never Wasted program which uses a network of collaboration between cocktail bars to upcycle surplus ingredients and organic by-products to create circular cocktails and close the loop on food waste in the community. Re hosted a masterclass at Paradiso on the Never Wasted program and circular cocktails garnished with good.

Ketel One Vodka is a family-made brand that is passionate about promoting bartender talent that makes a positive difference in their communities through the initiative, Garnished with Good, and the creator of the 50 Best Bars Ketel One Sustainability Award. Giacomo and Ketel One agree that the experience of enjoying a cocktail becomes even more satisfying knowing that the commitment taken by the bar is a step towards doing good in communities around the world.

Ketel One Garnished with Good initiative brings bars and bartenders together to use their cocktails to create a positive impact on the community through innovative concepts, waste reduction, circular ingredients, and uplifting people through social projects. Learn more about the international projects by incredible hospitality talent that Ketel One supports.

Paradiso is also very proud to start a partnership with Treedom, an Italian online platform that has been supporting communities of small farmers for years by planting trees all over the world with the goal of making the planet breathe. This collaboration is activated with the creation of the first Paradiso Forest. On the evening of March 21, 2023, International Day of Forests, for every Ketel One Voyage cocktail Garnished with Good, Paradiso planted a tree with Treedom. The Garnished with Good initiative enabled each guest to plant a piece of the future with Paradiso.

All of this is visible on the Paradiso website, in a section specifically designed to track the Paradiso Forest and its effects on the environment where you can follow the forests' progress and get updates on its environmental impact.

Other activities during the Paradiso Sustainability Summit 2023 included the cleaning of Barceloneta Beach to collect plastic and the official opening of the new Paradiso Zero Waste Lab. The third and new member of the Paradiso family is a physical space used to recycle the few waste products left in the bar. For the initiative, Paradiso has invested and purchased tools and machinery thanks to which plastic and organic waste will be given a new life, directly in the lab.

Other partnerships and collaborations

MS Bartrends, an atelier that produces quality handmade aprons for the hospitality compost industry
AbonoKm0, a company that offers an organic waste management service, in order to transform it into customized tools
Makeat, a food design company based in Barcelona, in collaboration with which the coasters in the bar are made (entirely from cocktail preparation scraps)
Plat Institute, local company specializing in Augmented Gastronomy
3D Vault, company specialized in 3d printing for hospitality. Producer of some of the eco-glasses designed for the new menu

Paradiso and sustainability

Paradiso is located in Barcelona's historic Born district. Opened in 2015, it was crowned the best bar in the world according to the famous The World's 50 Best Bar ranking last October 2022. Since the opening, Giacomo Giannotti, owner and founder, and his team have embarked on a path of constant development and innovation, investing a lot of energy in researching methods and techniques to improve and optimize the use of each ingredient, in all its parts. The ultimate goal is to be able to be a bar as sustainable as possible. Challenging but certainly not impossible.

For me, sustainability means trying to waste as little as possible and transforming residues into materials that can be used at the bar. In an industry like ours, this might seem like an unattainable goal, but with the right mindset and the right people, there is always a way.

Giacomo Giannotti, owner and founder of Paradiso

Over the years the use of plastic inside the bar has been reduced almost completely: the plastic straws have been replaced with biodegradable and eco-friendly straws, the transparent film and the warehouse wrappers abolished in favor of sheets of waxed paper, reusable and therefore more sustainable. Currently, Paradiso produces around 30 kg of plastic waste per month, which will be processed and transformed into objects like bottle openers, trays, boxes, plates and coasters, ashtrays, straw holders. Anything that can be created to optimize every resource and reduce waste.

We try to optimize every resource and reduce waste. All the coasters, straws, and trays were created by recycling waste from the bar.

Giacomo Giannotti, owner and founder of Paradiso

In fact, the coasters inside the bar are a tangible example of this thinking as they are made entirely from the waste from the preparation of cocktails and created in collaboration with Makeat, a Food Design company from Barcelona.