Amorim ranks The Drinks Business green top 50

Subscribe to Daily Wine News RSS feed

Subscribe to Daily Wine News e-mail

Browse the DWN Archive by date

Amorim is the only closure supplier in a global ‘top 50’ ranking of companies with strong environmental influence, released by major UK drinks trade publication ‘the drinks business’.

The world’s leading natural cork producer, Amorim was acknowledged for “its commitment to forest preservation, biodiversity and land stewardship through its analysis of stopper materials and its environmental footprint”.

Amorim also won praise for “promoting the green benefits of cork and working with the WWF on Forestry Stewardship Certification”.

‘The drinks business’ highlighted the hundreds of thousands of consumer website ‘hits’ on Amorim’s international ‘Save Miguel’ campaign and the thousands of virtual cork oaks planted by members of the public as a result of the internet-based promotion.

Amorim ranked 25 on ‘The Green List’, which made its debut in the publication’s January 2009 edition.

The criterion for securing a place on ‘the drinks business’ list was the extent to which a company influenced the public on green issues.

As a result, retailers dominated the highest rankings. United Kingdom retailer Tesco took out the number one ranking on ‘The Green List’, while US retailer Wal-Mart finished second, followed by French international retailer Carrefour.

Corticeira Amorim’s chairman and chief executive António Amorim said he was pleased that Amorim had received this important trade recognition for its commitment to the environment.

“This report acknowledges a number of organisations that are working hard to reduce their environmental impact and in the process are influencing consumers on green issues,” he said.

“We are pleased Amorim has been ranked amongst them and were also delighted to see several Amorim customers acknowledged for their green credentials.”

Among the leading international wine companies named on ‘The Green List’ were Torres, Foster’s, Concha y Toro, Constellation Brands, Vranken-Pommery Monopole, Freixenet, Diageo and Pernod Ricard.

In 2006 and 2007, Corticeira Amorim prepared sustainability reports that highlighted the crucial role of cork forests in carbon dioxide retention, preserving biodiversity and combating desertification as well as the role of cork manufacturing in sustainable development.

Amorim has also recently released the results of a life cycle analysis on closures. The study was commissioned by Amorim to provide the wine industry with details of the environmental impact of different closures and to identify opportunities to improve the environmental performance of natural cork stoppers.

Undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the study found that carbon dioxide emissions associated with cork closures are significantly lower than the emissions due to aluminium screwcaps and plastic stoppers.

“There are irreplaceable environmental benefits in the use of natural cork as a wine stopper and today there is much greater consumer and industry recognition of that,” said Mr Amorim.

“For winemakers, retailers and consumers that want to improve environmental performance, cork is their natural CO2-retention partner.”

Further information on Amorim’s green credentials can be found at www.corkfacts.com, while details of the Save Miguel campaign are available at www.savemiguel.com.