The carbon footprint of a business is the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the organization or product. Greenhouse gases are what is causing our climate to change so rapidly. Wineries, like any business, are part of the problem, and many are looking at what they can do to limit their effect. Good for them.
This graph is from the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance. It shows the impact of each step along the way from grape to the bottle getting to your local store.
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| Click on the image to enlarge |
The glass bottle at 29% of the carbon footprint is what stands out. This packaging for wine isn't necessary, it's traditional. Glass gained popularity 400 years ago and hasn't let go, even with modern alternatives.
Then you'll see transport of the bottled wine at 13%. This is high because wine bottles are heavy and fragile, adding to the cost to move them around.
Solar panels are nice and all, but let's take a look at changing the biggest issue. The problem is, nobody wants to be first with putting their $50 wine in some sort of box or metal container. About half of the bottles used by American wineries comes from China. If the tariffs happen, this might be an incentive to change over.
Or why can’t we develop a bottle re-using system similar to Germany’s beer bottles, so that they can be cleaned, sanitized and reused 50 times or more? Add extra costs to discourage fancy bottles, make one sturdy bottle standard for all wine sub-$50.
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