Bourgogne Wine Board announces landmark collaboration to achieve carbon neutral status

By James Lawrence

Published: 11 February, 2022

The Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) has enlisted the help of Paris-based waste management firm Adelphe, working together to develop an overarching strategic vision to achieve carbon neutral status by 2050.

Known as the industry's Objectif Climat, the Bourgogne Wine Board intends to finalise an strategic plan by the end of the first half of 2022, with a strong emphasis on reducing carbon emissions in the supply chain.

According to a representative from the wine board, “The carbon audits carried out over the past few years by various inter-branch organisations in the wine industry demonstrate that packaging represents between 30 and 40% of the carbon emitted by the sector.”

With this in mind, Adelphe is helping the industry embrace new eco-friendly packaging designs, helping to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases across the wine sector’s entire value chain. As part of its strategy, Adelphe has enlisted the expertise of Didier Livio, a sustainable development strategy consultant.

Sophie Wolff, MD of Adelphe, commented: “With Objectif Climat, together with the BIVB, we are launching an innovative project on a regional scale that is developing and expanding our eco-design expertise to include the carbon footprint of wine packaging and of the sector’s entire value chain.”

She added: “We are keen to carry out this trial as the results will enable our clients to take their approach a step further and stay ahead of the increasingly active regulations on these topics. Thanks to this pioneering project, in future we aim to offer solutions to companies to ease the ecological transition of winegrowing areas.”

As a result of this landmark partnership, 3,600 wine estates, 270 negociants and 16 cooperative wineries which make up Burgundy’s wine industry will be able to benefit from this practical methodology and implement the suggested recommendations. Each stage of the production chain will be taken into account: from work in the vineyard to shipping the wine, not forgetting vinification, packaging and logistics, etc.

Once the Objectif Climat project is complete, Adelphe hopes to unite French winegrowing regions around a common desire to help France achieve carbon neutrality.

“The efforts made nationally over the past 15 years in the various winegrowing regions point to a steady improvement in carbon footprints. However, companies do not always have the technical and financial means to accurately identify and implement the major changes needed to achieve the carbon neutral target by 2050,” Wolff said.

Jean-Yves Bizot, a winegrower based in Vosne-Romanée and a member of the BIVB’s Technical Committee, added that the project “gives us a chance to question our usual production and consumption patterns (working the land without seeing the limits of its resources) and reflect on all of the challenges we face. Ultimately, it’s a way of thinking up opportunities for the future.”

Adelphe’s carbon neutral methodology is set to be validated and distributed to producers by summer 2022. However, their findings will be made available to growers in other French regions.

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