Global warming is one of humanity’s major concerns, bringing together nations, governments, businesses, and citizens in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a key to combating climate change.
The wine sector is fully aware of the need to reduce its CO2 footprint, placing a strong emphasis on the uniqueness of natural cork products and cork oak forests, which play an important role in fighting global warming.
Given our significant role, the carbon emission balance of cork stoppers should be considered. This means evaluating not only the carbon retained by the stoppers but also the carbon absorption capacity thanks to cork oak forests.
Additionally, research conducted by consulting and auditing firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and EY has validated the role of cork in containing greenhouse gases. These studies, sponsored by Corticeira Amorim and carried out by these independent companies, were able to compare the life cycle of cork stoppers against plastic stoppers and screw caps made of aluminum and plastic. The results of this study, the only ones to date that have subjected different types of closures to a fair analysis, indicate that when considering the ecosystem absorption made possible by the cork extraction cycle, the retention capacity reaches 309 grams of CO2 for generic natural cork stoppers and up to 562 grams of CO2 for sparkling wine stoppers, in stark contrast to the CO2 emissions attributed to each plastic stopper (up to 14.8 g/stopper) and aluminum stoppers (up to 37.2 g/stopper).
We are pleased to announce that, based on the parameters identified in these studies, our purchases of natural cork stoppers made between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019, have made a significant contribution to CO2 sequestration.
Thank you Amorim Cork for your study. We are proud to announce that we have obtained this prestigious certification.
