Catena Institute joins SWR Bottle Weight Accord

By James Bayley

Published: 11 October, 2024

The Catena Institute of Wine has officially joined the SWR Bottle Weight Accord, reaffirming its sustainability commitment as a founding member of the Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR). The institute’s efforts include light-weighting bottles and tackling the misconception that heavier bottles signify higher quality.

“Heavy bottles look fancy, like perfume and cognac bottles, but few consumers know that they have a higher carbon footprint,” said Laura Catena (pictured), MD of Catena Institute of Wine.

Catena has already achieved notable reductions, with average bottle weights now at 416g and as low as 380g for key Malbec brands. These changes have cut over 1,200 metric tons of glass annually.

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This progress has been made possible through a long-standing collaboration with Verallia, a fellow SWR member and glass manufacturer. “We are grateful that Verallia Argentina has partnered with us for over a decade to reduce weight. Today, our average bottle weight is down 40% from 15 years ago,” Catena added.

The SWR Bottle Weight Accord is a global agreement among retailers and producers to reduce the average weight of 750ml still-wine bottles to below 420g by the end of 2026, down from the current average of 550g. With 18 global members — including Tesco, Systembolaget, Lidl, and Endeavour Group — the Accord covers the production and sale of over 1.2 billion bottles of wine annually.

Peter Stanbury, research director for the Sustainable Wine Roundtable, said: “We are delighted to welcome Catena Institute of Wine to the Bottle Weight Accord. Having a producer of Catena’s stature shows that even the finest wines can be presented in environmentally friendly lightweight bottles.”

Looking ahead, Catena is committed to leading industry-wide change. “My personal objective is to convince consumers that the beautiful wine they love is just as beautiful in a lighter bottle. For this to happen, we need an industry-wide shift, with campaigns from retailers to consumers,” Catena concluded.

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