Johannesburg - On Monday was World Environment Day and Sandrine Sommer, chief sustainability officer of Moët Hennessy, spoke to Catherine Constantinides, a social entrepreneur with over a decade’s experience in education creating awareness around climate change, sustainable development, agriculture, and women’s empowerment, during her recent visit to the home of Moët & Chandon and the ChangeNOW summit in Paris.
Sandrine Sommer (SS): It’s been wonderful to host you in France, Catherine, please tell me about some of your impressions from your recent travels?
Catherine Constantinides (CC): Thank you, I had the most incredible experience, and really felt the energy that is being put towards sustainability. Each member of the team is so passionate and committed to what they are doing, from the CEOs to the workers on the ground who I met. So little is known about Moët Hennessy’s drive towards sustainability. By telling these stories, we inspire an entire industry to make positive changes. By sharing what the maisons have managed to and are striving to achieve, we’re able to inspire people to think ‘how can we look at our own objectives and implement things differently’. I believe that this is how we ultimately change the world. If we look at the collective action of what each maison is doing, we are moving in the right direction, no matter how big the challenges are as there is a commitment to the same goal and a shared value system.
SS: Yes exactly, I totally agree. Collective action, implemented together, and only if we are together, means that we can change the world.
CC: I am a strong believer in the concept of citizenship. And I think now more than ever, the world needs to embrace citizenship on an individual-level. It is about the power we have to make choices in our daily lives, it’s what we do from when we wake up to when we go to work, to how we go to work, to the things we do and change daily, resulting in the actions and programmes we implement…
CC: On the note of positive change, could you tell me what Moët & Chandon’s Natura Nostra programme is all about?
SS: As a global leader in luxury wines and spirits, with 26 iconic maisons we have a special responsibility towards our stakeholders and towards the planet as a whole. Our original founders strived to be responsible actors. It is our mission to nurture this heritage and ensure we maintain the right balance between our business activities and the needs of nature. Soils, as a complex ecosystem, are one of the Earth’s most precious natural resources and a source of prosperity for Moët Hennessy. The quality of the soil of our terroirs, the know-how of our people and the excellence of our products are closely interwoven. But our commitment goes far beyond soils and terroir. Because taking care of nature is ultimately about taking care of people, it is also our role to support communities and bring positive change to society. It’s about Living Together as one. We have thus created a Moët Hennessy global sustainable programme named LIVING SOILS LIVING TOGETHER in which each maison can express its own sustainable topic. For example, Natura Nostra is Moët & Chandon’s programme to accelerate the ecological transition in favour of greater biodiversity in sparkling wine. This impactful programme adopts a global approach to responsible vineyard cultivation, the diversification of natural ecosystems and protection of the soil, fauna and flora of the Champagne region. It is based on two major pillars: creating 100km of ecological corridors by 2027 and accelerating towards regenerative agriculture to rethink human interventions. This is a first step, along with a focus on climate change, investigating how to drastically decrease our carbon emissions, and by reviewing the social aspect to uplift communities.
CC: As part of this programme, I believe that you are also relooking packaging?
SS: Indeed, one of the pillars of the LIVING SOILS LIVING TOGETHER programme is the reduction of carbon emission, and of course one of the sources of our carbon emission is the packaging – with a clear focus on ecodesign. We are decreasing the environmental footprint of our packaging and particularly of our glass bottles. Glass is the most premium type of packaging but also infinitely recyclable – which is very important as there is no leaching. We are working with glassmakers to reduce the carbon emissions of the glass by reducing the weight of the glass bottles for example… It is a big challenge, but we have to do it. Via our company New Hope in Europe, we are already achieving 85% recycled glass bottles.
SS: We’re also working on our gift boxes. When we create cardboard boxes, we have to be sure that it’s made of eco-friendly material, is 100% recyclable – for example by using hemp in the packaging such as Veuve Clicquot and Ruinart with its “second skin”.
CC: I was very impressed with my visit to the ChangeNOW summit and to witness first-hand the involvement of the various maisons of Moët Hennessy.
SS: For me, ChangeNOW is the best forum to find solutions for the planet… And to have a successful international gathering of minds. Many different countries are represented here and what I like is the energy and all the solutions. We need start-ups and as a big company, we need to consult them and to scale up their solutions within our industry
CC: Could you tell us about the sustainability initiatives each maison is championing?
SS: There are a lot of powerful initiatives and the ChangeNOW summit offered a dedicated space to promote soils with our maison initiatives. From the ecological corridors of Moët & Chandon’s Natura Nostra programme to Hennessy’s forest regeneration and Ruinart’s vitiforestry – each maison is focusing on a specific area of sustainability. The four main pillars are regenerative soils, mitigating climate impact, engaging society, and empowering our people.
CC: World Environment Day is coming up on the June 5. Is there any message you would like to share pertaining to this important day?
SS: I believe that the message we are both sharing is one of conversation and of collaboration. We need solutions and positive energy and that’s exactly what we found at #ChangeNow 2023. It’s essential to collaborate – we are all actors, we all play a part in making a real change. That is the reason why we have decided to partner with ChangeNOW in order to edit the second edition of the World Living Soils Forum which will take place in France during second semester of 2024.