By Bibendumtimes
We take a lot of things seriously at Bibendum – wine, customer, service, lunch – but nothing more so than our Vivid project which aims to make a real difference to the way we impact on the environment. Vivid is the name we give to our wide-ranging project to reduce the impact that Bibendum, its employees and its products have on the environment. It is Bibendum’s solid commitment to use the most environmentally friendly and sustainable methods possible in every area of our business, from the sourcing and packaging of wine to how we run our office. Led by a steering committee of over 20 Bibendumites from all part of the business, it is charged with devising, implementing and communicating solutions to the problem of how to reduce our carbon footprint.
Most importantly of all, Vivid also encourages everyone to get involved and make a difference however small it might seem. Vivid has already seen some amazing results. We have reduced the amount of glass needed to bottle our wines and the miles travelled to deliver them to our customers. Here is a bit more on the five pillars that form the backbone of what Vivid is all about:
In the vineyard and the winery
We work very closely with our producers to encourage sustainable vineyard and winery practices and where possible the conversion to certified “organic” and “biodynamic” grape growing. We also highlight our Vivid producers online and promote their wines at our tastings and in our trade list. Our portfolio includes a wine range of organic, biodynamic and other environmentally sustainable wines and Vivid helps to ensure our customers know which ones they are.
How we package our wine
Wine is heavy and all the glass and cardboard used to transport it comes at a considerable environmental cost. Vivid has already been responsible for moving all our UK bottles wines to new lightweight glass bottles. These new bottles weight up to 23% less that the old ones allowing us to save 195,515 kg of glass or the equivalent of 549,201 bottles per year!
How we ship and transport our wine
We’ve increased the amount of wine we ship in bulk to the UK and bottle in lightweight glass, saving an enormous amount in carbon emissions. Of course, other wines need to be shipped in bottle and we’ve cut down on the environmental impact of these by moving our warehouse closer to London saving us 52,416 miles of road travel every year – that’s 22 tones of carbon dioxide.
How we run our office
Good Vivid practice begins at home and we have made big changes to the way we work on an everyday basis. Bins have disappeared from under our desks to encourage recycling (we now recycle between 65 and 70% of our office waste), all printers now print double-sided to save paper and cartoons around the building remind us all of the need to turn off lights and computers when not needed and to generally think about the impact of everything we do. They are all little things on their own but together have made a big difference.
Inspiring People
This fifth and last pillar is probably the most important, and the most difficult. We’ve recently signed up for the 10:10 campaign to try and reduce our carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010 and if we are to succeed everyone needs to do their bit and take responsibility. To help spread the message, Vivid publishes a quarterly newspaper to cajole, encourage and inform everyone about the importance of this work. This bottom up approach encouraging everyone to get involved has been Vivid’s great success and means that it is not just those closely involved in the organisation of Vivid who get to feel they are contributing to this most important of projects.
You can find out more about Vivid and how you can get involved at www.bibendum-wine.co.uk/trade or join one of the Vivid tours we will be running at the annual tasting.
Tags: Bibendum, environment, vivid
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