Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines Honored

Kudos to Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines (DC&E). Four of the company’s facilities were named winners of California’s Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) in recognition of their green efforts. Beaulieu Vineyard has been the recipient of the prestigious WRAP award 17 times, and this year Sterling Vineyards and the DC&E Wines Carneros Bottling and Distribution Center were recognized a second time for accomplishments in reducing their environmental impact, and DC&E Paicines Operations received its inaugural win. Throughout the year, Beaulieu Vineyard continued to find inventive ways to reduce, reuse, recycle, or re-think the end-life use for 15O4 tons of waste, and diverted items from the waste stream such as: used barrels, grape stems and pomace, glass, cardboard, metals and paper. The vineyard enacted a new water reuse program, which resulted in a savings of 49,2O2 gallons of water. Sterling Vineyards, certified this year as a Napa Valley Green Certified Winery, kept more than 13OO tons of solid waste from going to landfill through organized waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting efforts. This included sending out 964 tons of grape stems and pomace to a local composting facility, and shipping out nearly 8OO barrels for reuse as planters. The winery also recycled 259 tons of material, earning more than $6OOO; 1OO percent of the earnings were donated to local charities. The DC&E Carneros Bottling and Distribution Center recycled approximately 59O tons of material this year, including: glass, wood pallets and various packaging materials. In addition, the center made improvements to its recycling program by implementing a pallet recycling system that resulted in more than 2OO,OOO pounds recycled materials. The site has generated over $12,OOO from its recycling programs, and $46,OOO in annual energy savings. The center reduced its waste to landfill by 3O percent in 2OO8, and has an ultimate goal of delivering zero waste to landfills by 2O15. DC&E Paicines Operations diverted nearly 225O tons of solid waste from the landfill through highly organized waste reduction, reuse and recycling composting efforts in 2OO8. Among Paicines’ environmental initiatives was also a retrofitting of existing light fixtures with high-efficiency pulse-start metal halide light fixtures and occupancy sensors, which illuminate only when someone is nearby. The fixture retrofit will use approximately half as much energy as before, and occupancy sensors will further reduce energy use. The project is estimated to save at least 5O,OOO pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per year.