Wine Environmental Footprint: the EU adopts the draft category rules to measure the environmental impact of wine products

Brussels, 2 March 2016 – A major milestone of the EU ‘Wine PEF pilot’ towards harmonized methodologies for footprint measurement and communication of environmental performance of wines.

The Steering Committee of the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) project has approved the screening and the draft category rules that have been proposed by the Wine PEF pilot’. This Steering Committee is chaired by the European Commission and brings together the official national experts from all member States, the Joint Research Center, and the representatives from each of the pilot projects.

This represents a major milestone of this EU ‘Wine PEF pilot’ that aims at shaping harmonized methodologies and consistent solutions for voluntary footprint measurement and communication of environmental performance of wines from a cradle-to-grave perspective, under the umbrella of the European Commission’s Product Environmental Footprint initiative (PEF).

The draft category rules have been defined taking in consideration the opinion from relevant interested stakeholders in the framework of a public consultation. As part of the procedure, the draft rule will be now applied to 3 existing wine products currently sold in the European market to test their pertinence and implementability. The final rules for wines will be released in December 2016.

The outcomes from the wine pilot will be intended to become the specific PEF rules to be used by all stakeholders in the EU wine sector or even internationally who voluntarily decide to measure the environmental performance of their wine products. Following an in-depth evaluation of the results of the pilots the European Commission may decide on further policy applications.

Wine companies, associations and other relevant stakeholders in the wine value chain willing to join the Wine PEF Pilot’ are invited to express their interest to ceev@ceev.eu

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About the Wine PEF Pilot project

• The Wine PEF Pilot project partners are:
  • Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins (CEEV) – Coordinator
  • Pernod Ricard Winemakers Spain
  • Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) & three Champagne companies
  • Unione Italiana Vini (UIV)
  • Soc Agricola Salcheto
  • The European Container Glass Federation (FEVE)
  • The European Cork association (Celiege)
  • Amcor
  • Nomacorc
  • Andalusian Institute of Technology (IAT)
  • UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle & Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)
  • Ihobe Ingurumen Jarduketarako Sozietate Publikoa/ Ingurumen eta Lurralde Politika Saila – Eusko Jaurlaritza, Departamento de Medio Ambiente y Poli­tica Territorial – Gobierno Vasco
  • International Vintage Master Course, viticulture and LCA, Unité de recherches Grappe, UMT Vinitera, SFR Quasav
  • Institut Français de la Vigne et du Vin (IFV)
  • Lavola
• These partners participate at the Technical Secretariat (TS) of the Wine PEF Pilot and collaborate for the definition of EU methodologies and information solutions that are appropriate and adapted for measuring and communicating wine environmental performance.
• The coordinator of the project’s TS is the Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins (CEEV – www.ceev.eu) who represents the wine companies in the European Union. It brings together 24 national organisations. With more than 7.000 companies, mainly SMEs, and more than 200.000 direct jobs in the EU, its members produce and market the vast majority of quality European wines, with and without a geographical indication, and account for over 90% of European wine exports. With around 8,8 billion € worth of exports every year, the wine sector makes a contribution of over 6 billion € to the EU trade balance. In the area of environmental sustainability, CEEV aims at promoting initiatives that contribute to the improvement of the environmental performance of competitive EU Wines and sector by preserving its natural assets and improving environmental sustainable viti-viniculture practices, preventing disproportionate burdens, barriers to trade and distortions of competition, and boosting the competitiveness of a responsible and sustainable wine sector.
• The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) is an initiative of the European Commission which aims at developing harmonized methodologies for voluntary footprint measurement.