Hey, today we have a riddle for you. Do you know what is the best waste for the planet? Nope ? Come on, we're nice, we'll give you the trick. The best waste is simply that which we do not produce!
With the team, we have understood this and we are committed to reducing our waste as much as possible , especially in logistics . It's Sonia and Thompé, our budding logisticians who work every day and rack their brains to offer responsible alternatives to our transport methods . Our objective ? Move towards zero waste logistics. Remember, we launched the idea a year ago and we talked about it here. This idea responds to our commitments and our B Corp label , which motivates us every day to work for the good of the planet . Today, we give you a brief overview of this great initiative and the progress made over the past year.
An initiative linked to our label and our mission
As you already know, Oé is labeled B Corp since 2017. This label is the certification of companies created for the common good . With this label, we set ourselves the mission of doing good through good , that is to say promoting sustainable viticulture and a healthy and respectful way of consuming through our good organic wines.
In order to go further and write down our environmental mission in black and white in the company's statutes, we became a company with a mission last June. A company with a mission is a company that adds a social and environmental mission to its objectives in addition to its benefits for the community and the country's economy. Do you want to know more about our mission-driven company status? It's this way !
With this status, we give ourselves a horizon, a line of sight, a compass to guide us if you prefer. And what is great is to see that the whole team is very involved in our projects and works hard to carry out our mission. Each one proposes initiatives to meet our objectives and today we are talking to you about our Zero Waste Supply. We'll explain everything to you, let's go!
Zero Waste Supply
The supply chain, or logistics in French, links us with our suppliers, distributors and customers. It begins when we bottle our organic wines until the customer has them in their hands. This project consists of minimizing the waste we have in our warehouse and is the initiative of our logisticians Sonia and Thompé who are committed to taking a step for the planet. We will explain to you in detail.
Traditionally, wine bottles are transported on wooden pallets, in several small white boxes, taped and covered with several layers of plastic. A pallet of bottles is about 125 bleached boxes, 100 meters of tape, 750 labels and caps and 35 meters of plastic film. It's too much, so we wanted to find sustainable alternatives.
A year ago, we began to take measures to remedy this. We decided to have the labels of our bottles delivered in bulk to our bottler to limit the use of disposable plastic. Our glassines, the thin sheets on which we affix the labels, are recyclable and we avoid unnecessary waste.
Our progress over the past year
In one year, we managed to put new things in place. We receive part of our bottles in wooden crates and paloxes , which means fewer pallets, less cardboard and less plastic. Great ! Our wines arrive in bulk and we have been able to drastically reduce the amount of waste in our warehouse , a great victory!
We also reworked our materials, for example we went from traditional plastic tape to kraft tape . Kraft tape is the ecological alternative to plastic tape, it is made with kraft paper and its glue is made of natural rubber, it is biodegradable and 100% recyclable. We have also changed the composition of our labels , they keep the same visual but are made with recycled paper instead of sugar cane, hemp and flax residues. We added micro-perforations invisible to the naked eye to make it easier to wash our bottles and save energy. The labels are affixed with a water- soluble glue and therefore do not require additional treatments during washing.
With the help of our partner Rebooteille , we deliver our bottles to our grocery stores, wine shops and restaurants in Lyon in reusable lockers instead of single-use boxes. An initiative that we tested a year ago and which found its success. We are now pushing this idea to all our partners throughout France. 
The delivery boxes are optimized and are stronger, lighter and have less cutting waste. For our boxes of 6 bottles, we now use cardboard that is more respectful of the environment , FSC certified and with black vegetable or recycled ink, completely dissolvable. The FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label is an environmental label that certifies sustainable wood production and sustainable forest management . Each cut tree is replaced. And yes, trees are our friends, they help us capture CO2 in the air and fight against global warming. The more there are, the better off we are.
All this is not over, we are working on other ideas and you can keep up to date on our permanent Supply 0 waste story on Instagram. We are moving the lines and we are struggling to find more ecological and responsible solutions in our logistics. We tell you, Oé is above all a team effort and we are proud of it!
