Sustainable Wine

At the end of May 2024, we marked the six-month anniversary of the SWR Bottle Weight Accord’s release with a reflective webinar. We discussed the progress and future of the Bottle Weight Accord, highlighting the advancements made, stories and experiences of our members, and our vision for the next phase of the Accord.

• Simon Mason, Head of Wine Sustainability & Due Diligence, The Wine Society

Moderator: Dr. Peter Stanbury, Research Director, Sustainable Wine Roundtable

In this short podcast Toby Webb, founder of the SWR, and head of research Dr Peter Stanbury provide a quick update on the work the SWR is doing in the sustainable viticulture space.

In this Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR) Member Interview podcast Hanna Halmari speaks with Anne Laure Ferroir, director at Terra Vitis, and Morgane Le Breton, co-manager at Maison Le Breton.

They discuss how eco-design is evolving in France, with a particular focus on light-weighting bottles and alternative packaging formats. Morgane shares how Maison Le Breton is approaching sustainable packaging, and Anne-Laure reflects on the initiatives she's seeing across Terra Vitis members. 

In this Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR) Member Interview podcast Hanna Halmari speaks with Emily Brighton MW, head of technical at North South Wines, the first UK wine distributor to receive B Corp accreditation.

Emily achieved her Master of Wine title earlier this year, for which she wrote a research paper investigating the impact of B Corp certification on wine distributors. In this podcast they discuss the main findings of Emily's research and the key learnings and insights for others working towards becoming a B Corp.

You can find Emily's research paper here.

One of the key pillars of the Sustainable Wine Roundtable is to help raise the quality of information and understanding of what sustainability is in wine. The Global Reference Framework (GRF) aims to do exactly that, and in this short podcast Toby Webb, founder of the SWR, and head of research Dr Peter Stanbury provide a quick update on the workstream. 

With over 70 sustainability standards globally relevant to the wine industry, the GRF aims to enable a transparent cross-comparison of all of these existing standards. Peter and Toby discuss the progress made so far, how they've ensured a robust process throughout, the impact they want to see a year from now, and what's next.

This podcast is the second in a series of brief SWR action area updates we'll be publishing this month.

In this short podcast Toby Webb, founder of the SWR, and head of research Dr Peter Stanbury provide a quick update on the Bottle Weight Accord. They reflect on the progress made to date since the launch of the Accord six months ago, and look ahead to future milestones and next steps. 

You can read more about the Accord and how to get involved here.

This podcast is the first in a series of brief SWR action area updates we'll be publishing this month.

Earlier this year at ProWein, the Sustainable Wine Roundtable's Richard Bampfield MW caught up with Fabian Kerbeck, sustainability and quality control lead at the VDP and Johannes Hasselbach from Weingut Gunderloch.

Hilke Dahlem, co-president of the VDP, also joins the conversation to share some more background on the VDP, why the association was set up, and what sustainability means for the VDP today.

In this Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR) Member Interview podcast Hanna Halmari speaks with Romain Ott, winemaker at the Provençal winery Château Léoube. Romain shares the estate's approach to sustainability, specifically their focus on organic viticulture and biodiversity. Romain underscores the importance of protecting and restoring nature through maintaining and regenerating what already exists: We need to work with the nature, help it and guide it, rather than trying to "recreate the environment."

They also discuss the impact of climate change in the Provence region, how winemakers are adapting, the role of innovation, and more.

In this podcast Toby Webb, founder of the Sustainable Wine Roundtable, talks with Etelle Higonnet. They discuss vitiforestry and it's potential and use in vineyards for management of climate risk and nature improvements. For more resources on vitiforestry, including a contact database, see here.

The SWR Bottle Weight Accord now has 15 signatories with many more wine businesses, from retailers to producers, currently in the process of joining.

• Firstly, we’ll drive both connections and collaboration between members so they can share challenges and solutions.

In this webinar our speakers share more about the process, the outcomes and most importantly, the climate and savings.

Dr Peter Stanbury, Research and Standards Director, SWR

Anne-Laure Ferroir, Director, Terra Vitis

Jeff Turnas, Senior Vice President of Culinary, Whole Foods Market