Moët Hennessy is seeking to regenerate soils and stem the loss of biodiversity to play its part in the fight against climate change and is striving to convince suppliers to adopt new practices, the wine and spirits group's chief sustainability officer told Reuters.
The company, a unit of the world's largest luxury goods group LVMH, aims to get environmental certification for all its suppliers by 2025, and obtain regenerative agriculture certification by 2030, Sandrine Sommer, CSR and sustainability director of Moët Hennessy, told the Reuters Next conference on Friday.
"My main message when we speak about sustainability and collective intelligence and how to work faster is that for sure, this is a collective work," Sommer said.
"We fixed these objectives, but we can't do this alone."
The Dom Perignon champagne and Belvedere vodka maker's efforts so far include planting trees to create ecological corridors across vineyards and working with glass makers to decrease carbon emissions and the weight of the bottles.
Champagne Region
In the Champagne region it has banned pesticides from vineyards and set up a new research and development centre to improve the sustainability of winemaking practices.
In October, the wine and spirits division of the luxury group issued a pledge to reduce its carbon footprint by adopting the 1.5°C target of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
It aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.
"Everybody wants to pay respect to this new world and wants to be more sustainable first," Sommer said.
The division, which contributed nearly 11% of the LVMH group's revenues in 2020, is expected to generate around €6 billion in sales this year as demand from the U.S. and Europe helps compensate for coronavirus shutdowns in South East Asia, Moet Hennessy chief executive officer Philippe Schaus said in October.
News by Reuters edited by Donna Ahern, Checkout. For more Drinks stories click here. Click subscribe to sign up for the Checkout print edition.
