We have completed Positive Luxury's Accelerator Programme! Positive Luxury works with luxury brands to meet higher and higher standards for people and nature through a thorough ESG+ assessment, awarding the Butterfly Mark certification when scoring over 50% in each area (environment, social and governance).  

In our previous blog on the accelerator programme, we shared the benefits for start-ups to receive sustainability consulting support, policy templates, communication toolkits and personalised risk mapping. Now let's take a closer look at what we've done ahead of our final submission! 

Baseline: 

In July last year, Canned Wine Co. Submitted the baseline assessment after going through every question for 29 drivers – covering topics from energy, water and waste management, packaging and logistics, to diversity, culture, human rights, sustainable sourcing and innovation. 

The team at Positive Luxury reviewed our answers and evidence in-depth and provided a preliminary score, performance report and detailed risk map. Our average score was 47%. 

• 45% environmental impact 
• 41% social impact 
• 45% governance 
• 83% innovation 

While our intentions were in the right place from the outset, it was clear that we were lacking evidence and data to push us over the 50% certification mark. 

Final Submission: 

Have you ever wondered what companies need to do to receive ESG certifications? Here are some concrete actions that we took at Canned Wine Co. over the last eight months to transform our purpose into practice: 

Policies: 

We had a detailed employee handbook and a suite of operational policies for the past few years, however, we improved existing ones and created new policies with key emphasis on: 

• Diversity & inclusion 
• Mental health support 
• Sustainable business travel 
• Sustainable logistics in our supply chain 
• 360 degree feedback for all employees 
• Internal promotions 
• Waste management 
• GDPR 

Trainings & Workshops: 

At Canned Wine Co., we've always championed professional development and personalised training plans, regardless of position. It became clear that we needed a few more company-wide trainings and arranged the following: 

• Mental health awareness – hosted by our Mental Health First Aider Rachael who joined the company in summer 2023 
• Equality, diversity & inclusion 
• Anti-bias 
• Energy conservation & reducing digital footprints 

Additionally, we have an annual sustainability strategy day and host regular workshops to collectively propel our sustainability projects and goals. 

Data Collection: 

We massively ramped up our data collection from our suppliers. We pride ourselves in being committed to sustainable sourcing and long-term relationships with our suppliers. While a lot of focus is on our wine, we know that every raw material comes from a place and we have a responsibility to establish the traceability of our inputs beyond wine and understand how sustainably our suppliers run their operations. 

In the last few months we therefore focused on: 

• Improving the data collection from our wine suppliers by expanding our supplier approval questionnaire and creating detailed ESG monitoring systems for each wine supplier 
• Creating a packaging audit to understand all material types in our packaging (cardboard boxes, aluminium cans & labels), the recycled content, recyclability and FSC status 
• Biodiversity dependency & impact assessment for our operations 

Carbon Footprint: 

Canned Wine Co. signed up with Zevero to calculate our company-wide carbon footprint and start our product life cycle assessments to compare our wine-in-can to other packaging formats. While we have not completed the analysis, our baseline assessment is currently in progress and will be shared this summer. 

In the meantime, we created an internal (unverified) Scope 2 analysis covering our purchased electricity to establish our carbon footprint and identify energy conservation opportunities. 

Sustainability Roadmap: 

One of the biggest pieces of work was publishing our 40-page Sustainability Roadmap that outlines our pillars for our sustainability strategy (people, planet, place and governance structures to hold us accountable. It sets out objectives, progress and next steps for each category. 

In addition, Canned Wine Co.: 

• Conducted a materiality assessment 
• Aligned ourselves to five UN Sustainable Development Goals (5, 8, 12, 13, 15)
• Created an in-depth sustainability action plan with tasks for every team member across Operations, Sales and Marketing with almost 40 sustainability metrics that track our progress 

What happens now? 

After all evidence was submitted, the Positive Luxury team has a double verification system to ensure several sustainability experts assess our performance. Stay tuned to find out about our Butterfly Mark certification and final score! 

The work of course does not stop for us at Canned Wine Co. As sustainability has no finish line. Our next priority is finalising our carbon footprint and publishing our first impact report.

Follow us along on our journey in the next iteration of Sustainable Sips..