Boutinot is an international importer, agency house and leading global wine producer and distributor. Working in partnership with growers in Italy and France, Boutinot has wholly-owned vineyards and wineries in the Southern Rhône, South Africa, New Zealand and England alongside a new joint venture in Argentina. From humble beginnings in Manchester 45 years ago, we are now a global wine business representing over 220 quality producers.
Carbon footprint reduction
Our scope 1 and 2 emissions are reported through the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) and we are setting targets for reduction through the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS).
We have appointed energy and low carbon specialists Envantage to calculate our Scope 3 emissions, and we are now setting reduction targets.
We have released our sustainability interim impact report, sharing it with our 220 producers to support and encourage them on their own sustainability journeys.
We are signatories to the Sustainable Wine Roundtable Bottle Weight Accord, a commitment to reducing the average weight of 750ml still wine bottles to 420g or below by the end of 2026.
We are committed to launching several sustainable NPD projects, including alternative packaging projects.
Many staff have now undertaken certified Carbon Literacy training, setting individual and group actions to reduce carbon as part of the course. This training will continue across the business to encompassing colleagues from all departments and sales channels.
Use of renewable energy
100% of our head office electricity comes from renewable sources. We have an electric car scheme and charging points at our head office.
Waste management & recycling
We are committed to reducing waste and improving our recycling rates. We recycle plastic, glass, paper, metal and food at our head office, which is a zero waste to landfill site. We also recycle and repurpose our corks from our offices and events.
NPD & packaging
We are working with our suppliers to find lower carbon packaging initiatives, as well as measuring our own-production wine average still bottle weight so that we can set targets to ensure it is below 420g by 2026.
Staff welfare & progression
The happiness and welfare of our employees is very important to us, and we have many initiatives in place to help make work a happy place to be. We have a workplace gym, private healthcare scheme, enhanced maternity / paternity policy, holiday purchase scheme, employee kitchen, dining area and garden, as well as free fruit, to help ensure our colleagues are as healthy as possible. We run WSET courses for employees and customers at our head office. We offer flexible hybrid working conditions helping to reduce our commuting impact. We introduced a bike to work scheme in 2019 and have bike sheds and showers installed at our head office. We introduced a salary sacrifice electric car scheme in 2020 to make electric vehicles more affordable and accessible for our employees and we have installed electric charging points at head office. We have implemented policies to cover Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Slavery & Human Trafficking, Drugs & Alcohol, Working with Alcohol, hybrid working, Carbon Literacy training to name but a few.
Community focused activities
We support The Wellspring, a homeless charity in Stockport, as well as Action against Hunger through our London office and Henners. In South Africa we support two charities that upskill farm workers, as well as contributing to a soup kitchen in rural Paarl and supporting people with addictions.
We run regular charity and fundraising activities at our offices including a hugely successful annual friend and family wine tasting which utilises left over wines from our portfolio tastings, so has the added benefit of reducing waste wine from these large events.
Encouraging sustainability among supply chain partners
We are in the process of measuring our scope 3 carbon emissions. From this we will be setting targets for our key emission hotspots, working with suppliers to ensure that there are robust plans in place to improve sustainability.
Responsible portfolio sourcing
We continuously audit our producer portfolio to calculate which have third party sustainability certificates, and which are working towards accreditation. We are encouraging our agency producers to reduce bottle weight where possible and will continue to record the bottle weights of all our wines.
All of our “Homes”, the vineyards we own, and our joint ventures, have third party sustainability certification and where possible to the highest available level, setting a benchmark to work as sustainability as possible within each varying location. Henners, our vineyard in Sussex has now gained a Gold certification in the Sustainable Wine GB audit, while our new joint venture in Argentina (AyB) scored in the top percentile in their recent Bodegas de Argentinas sustainability audit.
We are also developing a sustainability rating for our producers to ensure that we capture great initiatives outside of the third-party certification schemes.
We have audited our On-Trade green list and introduced a new International Green List to highlight our wines with third party accreditations to our international customers.
Measuring Progress
We have completed our scope 1,2 and 3 carbon footprint calculations for the 2023 -2024 financial year, and we are now setting targets to reduce our impact and developing an impact report to share our commitments.
We have set up a sustainability steering group which includes senior management, which is setting targets to reduce big impact areas.