Euro Honey Pledge
Apiculture and all of its derivations, including mead making, are inexplicably tied to ecological factors. A healthy environment produces good quality honeys, which in turn produce good quality meads. While good honey can be found around the world, sourcing it from regions and countries closer to where we, as artisans in Europe, make our meads is a crucial gesture. Carbon emissions from transport make up a large part of our environmental impact, as most meaderies do not produce waste on the same industrial scale as breweries or wineries.
Using more local honey also has a supporting effect on European beekeeping, a sector comprised of fellow artisans under continuing pressure themselves. At the moment, the European Union produces less than 60% of its total consumed honey, with a high risk of declining still due to industrial foreign competition and increasingly extreme climate events.
To react in solidarity to these two intertwining crises, EMMA proposes a pledge to privilege and favor the use honeys from across the European continent. This is not to say all other honeys are unable to be used, just that the preference is given to more local ones. The following pledge is not a full certification program but a collective action made in good faith, where we can as a group show that, despite the antiquity of mead, we are ethically very much in the 21st century.
I, the undersigned, pledge to, at my utmost capacity, choose and work with honey coming from sources on the European continent, that will have a positive impact on the environment and on beekeepers in Europe, and that this choice is made in good faith and solidarity with fellow artisans and workers both human and bee.