First "neutral" winery wasn’t including bottle

Media Release

LEADING STORIES IN CARBON NEWS: 18 MARCH 2008

World’s first “carbon neutral” winery wasn’t including the bottle

The world’s first “carbon neutral winery” hasn’t been including the carbon footprint of its bottles.

Bottles are included for the first time this year in the footprint inventory of the world’s first certified carbon-neutral winemaker, Grove Mill, the country’s first carbon market daily news service, Carbon News, reports today at www.carbonnews.co.nz.

This means Grove Mill wasn't including the carbon content of its bottles when it announced it was the world's first "carbon neutral" winery.

Ann Smith, programme leader for state-owned certifier carboNZero, told Carbon News that in anticipation of a new standard being drafted by British Standards, this year’s Grove Mill inventory was widened.

“Last year, when we took Grove Mill through the programme, there was no standard for product, only a standard for an entity or organisation, but they included a lot more emissions than were required, like the freight to the UK even though they don’t pay for it,” Smith said.

The biggest threat to the New Zealand economy was Labour’s commitment to completely phase out the “grand-parenting” of emitting industries by 2025, instead requiring them to meet the full cost of their emissions above 1990 levels.

During the first Kyoto commitment period from this year until 2012, the Government will cushion the blow to industries of having to surrender carbon credits to match their net emissions, by gifting credits equal to 90% of their 1990 emission levels.

However this protection will be progressively phased out over the following 13 years of the second commitment period. No other country was contemplating eliminating its grand-parenting protection, Smith said.

“What they’ve done in the United Kingdom, for instance, is not only to grand-parent their emitting industries but to say they’re not going to phase their grand-parenting out. And if we look at the European ETS, they have provided no phase-out at all of their grand-parenting,” he said.

Key backs ETS – with balance

Meantime, Opposition Leader John Key says his party supports the proposed New Zealand emissions trading system, describing it as “a good model, market-based, it works”. He also talked of further reforming the planning laws so renewable energy projects could proceed.

According to Carbon News, he told about 100 senior business people at the launch of the Green Carbon emission credit trader company in Auckland last night that there was “a lot of work needed on the process and around the rules” on the ETS.

“If we get that balance wrong and send jobs overseas we’ll cause ourselves a lot of problems,” he said.

Reform of “RMA type legislation is needed if we want more renewables”.

Does Wal-Mart have a message for Air New Zealand?

Wal-Mart is working to lead an effort by major global retailers to create common social and environmental standards for suppliers, a policy which might interest companies like Air New Zealand, currently facing questions over its employment by a sub-contractor of lower-paid Chinese cabin crew. Wal-Mart will make compliance with its social and environmental standards part of its contracts.

ENDS

www.carbonnews.co.nz

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