saving energy ecosystems and wine - closure on the cork debate

Saving Energy, Ecosystems and Wine

A closure on the cork debate

Nuno Gaspar de Oliveira (speaker), Paulo Bessa & João Rui Ferreira 1CIGEST|Environment & Sustainability – ISG Business & Economics School,

2CORTICEIRA AMORIM, SGPS, S.A3CE LIÈGE, Confédération Européenne du Liège



Oliveira (speaker), Bessa & Ferreira




Where screw caps come from

Bauxite (Aluminum) mining




Where synthetic stoppers come from

Oil (plastic) extraction




Where Cork comes from Cork Oak Forests and Parklands




http://www.celiege.com/




BRUSSELS – 3 November 2011.

Representatives of environmental NGO’s, the European Commission, The World Business Council for Sustainable Development, retailers and retailer trade associations and EUROPEN’s corporate members were among stakeholders involved in shaping and endorsing the contents of the Green Paper.

seven key questions:• material selection, • packaging design, • consumer choice, • transport, • end-of-life, • communication along the value chain• innovative business models.




• “After a five year trial of screwcap it has become clear that cork is best for our wines.”

• “Our wines are handmade and bottled without fining or filtration. Under a screwcap I have noticed the wines ‘sweat’, producing overly dominant reductive characters, a problem we have never had under cork.”

• “When I saw Rusden losing customers because of this, I realised something needed to be done”

Christian Canute (Barossa Valley winery)




• Though you might be surprised, natural cork wine stoppers are the best choice, primarily because harvesting the real stuff is an age-old practice that keeps the world’s relatively small population of cork oak trees, which can live for hundreds of years, alive. These scattered pockets of cork oaks, mostly in Portugal and Spain, thrive in the hot, arid conditions of the southern Mediterranean, sheltering a wide array of biodiversity and helping to protect the soil from drying out.

• As wine producers switch to other types of wine stoppers, the cork oak forests could be abandoned and the trees and the myriad plants and animals that depend on them could die out.




• Cork closures represent a specificity of the wine sector and its use has an important impact in the sustainable conservation of forest. Because of this important role, carbon balance of corks may be taken into account when applying the EP.

• When accounting the GHG emissions related to natural cork closures, the cork production system should be considered from a holistic approach.

• The final figures of the GHG emissions due to the cork production should consider the managed forest it comes from and its carbon sink effect.




• Quantify and compare the environmental impacts of cork stoppers versus aluminium and plastic closures on the UK market of wine.

• The survey was carried out using the methodology of life cycle analysis (LCA) and from bibliographic sources, complemented using the Ecobilan LCA database.

• The survey was carried out in conformance with the ISO 14040 series of standards.

• Seven indicators: non-renewable energy consumption; water consumption; emission of greenhouse gases; contribution to atmospheric acidification; contribution to the formation of photochemical oxidants (ozone layer depletion); contribution to the eutrophication of surface water and production of solid waste.




submit it to a critical review by an independent committee including external experts and interested parties:

• An independent life cycle analysis (LCA) expert (Yvan Liziard);

• An independent specialist on cork (João Santos Pereira, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Lisboa);

• Plastic association (Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe).

Besides these entities, an aluminium association was also contacted, but did not accept to cooperate in the review process.

Let’s ‘face’ it

Cork is just

Naturally better!

Cork Art by Scott Gundersen

Speaker: Nuno Gaspar de OliveiraISG – Business & Economics School

[email protected] | +351 21 751 37 00 ext. 127

Linkedin: ngoliveira | Facebook: CIGEST, NGOLIVEIRA

saving energy ecosystems and wine - closure on the cork debate

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