Can a Zero Carbon Wine Come from New Zealand? eco.love Wines Says Yes

Being a greener business can take many shapes and levels of complexity, but sometimes it’s the obvious that can make a substantial impact. Take eco.love Wines: Among its many sustainability minded touches is intentionally having longer rows in the vineyard. Why? That means less turns for the tractors, which results in decreased fuel consumption.

But how does a winery from New Zealand manage to be the world’s first carboNZero certified winery in the world?

Yes for most destinations, that’s a long way to ship wine, and no it doesn’t mean eco.love Wines produce no carbon emissions. Nearly any activity will at some point produce emissions. So what do eco.love's claims actually mean?

It means eco.love Wines started by measuring its impact as a baseline. Then it set about finding ways to reduce its energy use and seek out energy efficient alternatives. Then what it couldn’t (yet) reduce it offset via a verified scheme. Aware that this could sound like greenwashing, it answers this question head on.

How has eco.love Wines been reducing its impact?

Heat and water get reused in different areas of production. Its “cold cellar” system enables the units to pull cold air from the outside, reducing the need for refrigeration/air conditioning on the inside. Their buildings are temperature isolated via insulation, reducing the need to raise and lower the temperature in other parts of the building. The company eschews paper labels and the adhesives that come with them in favor of organic ink based screen print labels directly on the bottles. The bottles themselves consist of lightweight and recycled glass. Given how much a typical wine bottle weighs, this change alone makes a huge difference in the product's carbon footprint.

Another thing eco.love Wines has going for it is its founders: Two easy-on-the-eyes sisters, with a clear history with and passion for wine and sustainability. Putting a human presence front and center in their marketing, Twitter, Facebook and other online points of contact with customers is a smart way to literally personalize the brand, draw attention and then invite further inquiry.

They are more then pretty faces, as this Q&A with Andrea McBride about world water issues demonstrates.

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.