Producers need to put high-quality wines into lighter bottles to shift consumer perception around bottle weight, Dr Laura Catena argued at a Sustainable Wine Roundtable talk this week. Eloise Feilden reports. The Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR), an independent platform created to improve sustainability in the wine industry, launched its Bottle Weight Accord in October 2023. The accord followed a six-month study into bottle weight reduction co-funded by SWR retailer members including Finland’s Alko, Lidl GB, Systembolaget in Sweden, The Wine Society and Whole Foods Market in the US. Its initial target was to reduce the current average bottle size for 750 ml still wine bottles among its retail members from 550g to 420g before the end of 2026. Now, just over a year on from its launch, the SWR has 1.5 billion bottles under the accord. In a webinar detailing the progress made by the organisation in 2024, research director Dr Peter Stanbury said the accord therefore covers 5% of all still wine sold in 750ml bottles around the world. Glass is responsible for up to 50% of the carbon dioxide emissions of any given wine bottle. The SWR has calculated that its Bottle Weight Accord therefore saves 144,428 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year, the equivalent of 18,000 households. Key parters of the accord were present at the announcement, which took place yesterday (Thursday 19 December). US member Whole Foods, which operates more than 500 stores across the United States, Canada and the UK, has committed to have all
This Article was originally published on The Drink Business - Wine
