This project aims to raise awareness in society in general of the importance of the ecosystem through a gesture such as uncorking a bottle of wine

The project “PEFC certified cork stopper value chain”, launched by PEFC Spain, aims to raise awareness in society in general, and the consumer in particular, of the environmental, economic and social importance of the ecosystem. All this from a gesture as simple and everyday as uncorking a bottle of wine.

The initiative seeks to promote and value the Mediterranean pasture and forest as wealth-generating ecosystems and a paradigm of biodiversity, as well as promoting forest certification as a tool for sustainability and appropriate eco-innovation with which to accredit the sustainable forest management of the cork oak forest.

It also aims to encourage and promote the importance of the activity of harvesting and transforming cork, an ancestral task that is the backbone of the local development of many rural municipalities, and to inform wine professionals about the traceability and sustainability of PEFC-certified cork, from the raw material that makes up the bark to the stopper as a final product. through the processing industry. Finally, the project intends to raise awareness of the value of the cork stopper to the end consumer through wine professionals, in order to promote responsible consumption.

Among the expected results is the creation of a decalogue of the necessary mechanisms to operationalize the conclusions that have been drawn in the cork sector in events such as the international conference “Cork oak forests and cork sector”, held in Madrid in January 2014. On the other hand, it is expected to identify the necessary agents for the composition of a forum for dialogue between the cork sector.

It also seeks to maintain 71,500 hectares of dehesa and forest with sustainable management forest certification and increase 30,000 new hectares, 75 managers, five companies or facilities that guarantee the traceability of cork as a raw material from the dehesa and 10 companies in which criteria for responsible purchasing of products such as cork are implemented.

In the field of awareness-raising, the project seeks to raise awareness among 70 professionals about the importance of forest certification, 400 restaurants about the value of cork stoppers with a guarantee of sustainable origin thanks to the distribution of 10,000 copies of the Cork Menu and 120 professionals from the wine sector.

To this end, this initiative includes a series of activities such as:

• Valorisation and certification of the dehesa ecosystem: organisation of a professional meeting and holding of a workshop
• Marketing of the cork stopper as a certified sustainable product and as an ideal closure for wines
• Creation of the Cork Menu, advice to restaurants and wine professionals and awareness raising
• Project advertising: advertisement/advertorial; Web microsite, participation in industry events