Vinventions Announces Strategic Shift to Advance Sustainability Initiatives

Top wine closure solutions provider strengthens company’s commitment to Sustainability

ZEBULON, NC, USA, and THIMISTER, Belgium (June 27, 2018) — As the leading global producer of sustainable high-performance closures, Vinventions, the most comprehensive Wine Closure Solutions provider worldwide, announced today its plan to strengthen and accelerate its sustainability initiatives for future business development and product innovation. The news marks an overall strategic shift for Vinventions towards an objective of becoming the wine industry’s most sustainable closure company.

“For Vinventions, Sustainability is about more than just doing what is good for the environment. Our intent is to take a holistic approach to sustainability, fully integrating it into every aspect of our business, including our products, processes and culture,” says Malcolm Thompson, Chief Innovation Officer and President, Americas at Vinventions. “As a show of our strengthening commitment, Sustainability is no longer just a Guiding Principle for us—it has become a Strategic Priority as well. We are making significant up-front investments in capital and resources, because we are convinced that by advancing our planet and advancing our people we will almost naturally generate superior profitability for our shareholders, too.”

As part of this decision, Vinventions established a new executive position and appointed Michael Blaise as Vice President, Sustainability to support this mission and propel Vinventions’ Sustainability Initiatives forward.

“Our strategy at Vinventions is firmly grounded in the 3Ps of Sustainability: Planet, People and Profit. While our sustainable journey is a continuous process, we’re proud of our great success thus far in all three of these areas, including the use of 100% renewable energy at our Belgium facility, our water recycling practices in lean manufacturing, establishing retail cork collection and recycling programs, and the extensive philanthropist activities of our associates within our communities, to name a few,” says Michael Blaise, Vice President, Sustainability.

“Our commitment to our own sustainability and reducing our impact on nature is evident in our corporate vision to ultimately achieve carbon neutrality on a company-wide basis, a goal supported by new innovations across our product ranges,” Blaise adds. “For example, our plant-based Nomacorc Green Line is derived from sugarcane, a 100% renewable raw material source, which helps absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and reduce carbon emissions, in turn helping to combat climate change. Ohlinger SÜBR, another important sustainability milestone, utilizes natural cork in combination with a binder that is derived from natural sugar providing a safe, clean, recyclable and biodegradable alternative to polyurethane glue.”

For more information on Vinventions and its Sustainability Mission, visit Vinventions’ website.

About VINVENTIONS:

Vinventions was created in 2015 by family entrepreneur Marc Noël together with Bespoke Capital Partners, Heino Freudenberg and additional partners. Vinventions’ vision is to be the most innovative and most trusted global supplier of Complete Wine Closure Solutions to the still and sparkling wine industry. Since January 2015, Vinventions has acquired Nomacorc, Ohlinger Group and Syntek Bouchage and has created strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Cork Supply (natural cork) and Alplast S.r.l. (screwcaps). This led to the creation of Vinventions’ Complete Wine Closure Solutions, which encompass Nomacorc (PlantCorcs), Syntek (synthetics), Ohlinger (natural corks), Vintop and Alplast (screwcaps), as well as Wine Quality Solutions (oenological tools and services) and Wine Marketing Solutions (marketing services and wine consumer insights). Today, Vinventions employs over 550 associates globally and operates seven production sites in USA, Belgium, Germany, France, Argentina, South Africa and China. Including Alplast wine closures, Vinventions protects every seventh bottle of wine worldwide with its closure solutions, making it the second largest wine closure supplier worldwide with strong organic sales growth in 2017. The leadership values of Vinventions are based on customer proximity, innovation, local entrepreneurship, open teamwork, sustainability and long-term responsibility. Find out more at www.vinventions.com.