Catena Institute joins the SWR Bottle Weight Accord
The Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR) are thrilled to announce that the Catena Institute of Wine has officially joined the SWR Bottle Weight Accord. As a founding member of SWR, and a leader in sustainability, Catena continues to demonstrate its commitment to reducing its environmental footprint. Their latest efforts focus on light-weighting bottles and shifting consumer perceptions that equate heavier bottles with higher quality. As Laura Catena notes,
“Heavy bottles look fancy, like perfume and cognac bottles, but few consumers know that they have a higher carbon footprint.”
Catena’s commitment is already yielding impressive results. Their bottles now average 416g, with a further reduction to 380g for key Malbec brands, cutting over 1,200 metric tons of glass per year.
A key driver behind these achievements is Catena’s long-standing partnership with Verallia, a fellow SWR member and glass manufacturer. “We are grateful that Verallia Argentina has partnered with us for over a decade to reduce weight. Today, our average bottle weight is down 40% from 15 years ago,” says Laura Catena.
The Bottle Weight Accord is an agreement from retailers and producers to reduce the average weight of the 750ml still-wine bottles they sell from the current average of approximately 550g (about 1,300g for a full bottle) to an average bottle weight below 420g (1,170g full) by the end of 2026.
With 18 participating members globally — including major players like Tesco, Systembolaget, Lidl, and Endeavour Group —the Accord covers the production and sale of over 1.2 billion bottles of wine annually.
Looking forward, Laura Catena is committed to continued change:
“My personal objective is to convince consumers that the beautiful wine they love is just as beautiful in a lighter bottle. For this to happen, we need an industry-wide shift, with campaigns from retailers to consumers.”
Peter Stanbury, Research Director for the Sustainable Wine Roundtable, says:
“We are delighted to welcome Catena Institute of Wine to the Bottle Weight Accord. The Accord was initiated by a number of our retail members, so getting producers on board too demonstrates the importance of bottle weight to the whole wine supply chain. Having a producer of the stature of Catena demonstrates without doubt that even the finest wines can be presented in environmentally friendly light-weight bottles.”
For more information on the Sustainable Wine Roundtable, please contact Delaney Sheridan, SWR operations manager, at delaney@swroundtable.org.