10. Waste management

We stock sustainably produced ‘bags for life’ in our visitor centres, as an alternative to the disposable plasticated cardboard bags provided to people who purchase bottles in our shops. We make a donation of €1 for every bag to The Ocean Clean-up, a non-profit developing advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic.

We have stopped providing plastic cups at water machines in all our facilities, representing an annual saving of 110,000 plastic cups. We aim to abandon use of plastic cups in our coffee machines by the end of 2019.

The pressed grape skins are sold for distillation. We supply all the stalks (the engaço) that are left as a by-product of our fermentation processes to companies that use them for producing organic fertilisers.

We manage 8 water treatment plants (ETARs) across 15 sites. These systems ensure that any water leaving our wineries and storage facilities, in order to be returned to the river, is clean and will not harm wildlife or people as it returns to the water system. Furthermore, the sludge (from waste water treatment) is also used for the production of organic fertilisers.

We manage recycling centres at all our main installations. At these sites the waste materials are sorted into a wide range of containers in order to be safely and legally disposed of. We document all of our waste products and are co-responsible for finding the best possible solutions for the waste materials’ destination.

We provide recycling points in our offices for corks and batteries and we actively encourage our employees to bring these items in from their homes in order to achieve efficient recycling of both.