Environmental Demagoguery: Measuring and Labeling Wine's Carbon Footprint is Needless Undertaking; Will Raise Consumer Costs & Reduces Quality of Life

Bordeaux To Measure Wine’s CO2 Footprint


Environmental Leader


January 29, 2008


http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/01/29/bordeaux-to-measure-wines-co2-footprint


The Bordeaux Wine Board (CIVB) is launching a project to measure the GHG the region’s industry is producing. The project, called “Bilan Carbone” in French, will run for the next six months in association with the French Environment Agency, and the CIVB says the results will be released in September.


The aim of the study is to give an overview of all emissions resulting from growing and tending vines, making wine, and bottling, storage and delivery. It will also look at associated activities such as personnel, packaging, vine treatments and waste management. According to Roland Feredj, CIVB director, the study will cost about $70,000.Last November, the first-ever attempt at a carbon neutral vineyard in France began in Bordeaux’s Medoc region.

[MORE FRENCH PROTECTIONISM]


Another Bordeaux winemaking family, the Despagne Family, has already launched a carbon reduction project, planting 25 acres of sunflowers that will be used to produce fuel for tractors, but they said studying carbon emissions was a challenge. The Despagnes are using an Australian protocol, developed by Australian wine industry consultant, Provisor, and the Yalumba Wine Company, to measure their GHG and compare them with global standards.

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http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnFLyvTdnNFpzMEUeeN5bbRa0teg

Associated France Presse


Bordeaux to measure wine's CO2 footprint

BORDEAUX, France (AFP) —

The Bordeaux region, one of France's premier wine growing regions, is launching an ambitious project to measure the industry's greenhouse gas emissions to bolster its environmental standards.

The Bordeaux Wine Board (Conseil Interprofessionel des Vins de Bordeaux or CIVB) said it wanted to find out just how much carbon dioxide, one of the main culprits in global warming, it generated.

"We know we produce 756 million bottles of wine per year and that 40 percent of that is exported," said Laurent Charlier of the CIVB, who will be working with environmental consultant Jean Marc Jancovici on the project.

"This study should give a clear idea of what different methods of production or shipment mean, in terms of environmental cost," he said.

[THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN FRENCH CLIMATE CHANGE CHICANERY - THE FRENCH WINE INDUSTRY IS UNDER INCREASING COMPETITION FROM LOWER COST PRODUCERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD...]

The project, called "Bilan Carbone" in French, will run for the next six months in association with the French Environment Agency (ADEME), and the CIVB says the results will be released in September.

Jancovici, who has worked with the French government, France Telecom, Sony, Alcatel and luxury goods company LVMH, was also responsible for a similar project for producers in the Champagne region.

CIVB director, Roland Feredj, said the launch in October last year of France¹s national environmental action plan was in part responsible for the CIVB initiative but there is a practical side as well.

"Everyone is concerned with the costs of (wine) production, so if we can find ways of saving money and reducing carbon emissions, that would be ideal."

The aim of the study, which Feredj said would cost about 50,000 euros (70,000 dollars), are to give an overview of all emissions resulting from growing and tending vines, making wine, and bottling, storage and delivery.

It will also look at associated activities such as personnel, packaging, vine treatments and waste management.

"We intend to find out the carbon emissions for making different styles of wine," Charlier said. "And at what stages we need to concentrate our efforts to mitigate the emissions."

One Bordeaux winemaking family that has already launched a carbon reduction project, planting 10 hectares (25 acres) of sunflowers that will be used to produce fuel for tractors, welcomed the move, but said studying carbon emissions was a challenge.

"We think it's good and we are going to be part of the study group," said Aymeric Fournier for the Despagne Family which owns 300 hectares of vineyards in Bordeaux.

"This will give us an overview of the situation but it is a complicated thing to do," he warned.
"We started seriously in the spring of 2007 -- although we had already planted the sunflowers -- to look at our carbon emissions but deciding how far to take each measurement is not easy," Fournier said.

"For example, with any of the products needed for the vineyard we need to ask, how far has this come, how much carbon was emitted in its making? Or take the different cars and different distances that employees drive to work. It is a very detailed calculation," he said.

The Despagnes are already using an Australian protocol, developed by Australian wine industry consultant, Provisor, and the Yalumba Wine Company, to to measure their greenhouse gas emissions and compare them with global standards.

"It is quite a piece of work but we are determined to go ahead with it. It helps so much to have this kind of framework. We were a bit stumped as to where to go next before we saw this," Fournier said. "

India and Pakistan Make Effort to Avoid Using Geographical Indicators for Pashmina Shawls as Protectionist Cloak

http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/2007/12/basmati-redux-pashmina-story.html


Basmati redux: the Pashmina story


You can see them being sold everywhere: in the open-air stalls of Dilli Haat in the capital; in the crowded, winding lanes of Chinatown in Singapore; in the fashionable streets by the Hotel de Ville in Paris… Pashmina shawls, both real and fake, have become a global fashion statement, and can be found draped around every neck this winter. But where exactly do they originate?


In a replay of the Super Basmati yarn, troubles between India and Pakistan have been raging over the registration of the Geographical Indication (GI) tag for Kashmir-made Pashmina wool. HT reports that while Pakistan is “open to a joint GI tag”, India has said that this would be possible only if Pakistani Pashmina is proven to be of the same quality as the Indian variety.


The dispute originated when the Srinagar-based Craft Development Institute filed an application with the Geographical Indications Registry in Chennai to protect Pashmina weavers from others claiming to be authentic (See this earlier SpicyIP post). The Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry immediately challenged this on grounds that Pashmina shawls are also woven in Pakistan’s Gilgit Baltistan region and that India could not solely claim the GI, Mint reported a few months ago.


Pashmina is not the sole case in point of a GI being disputed by different countries; Basmati has received more media attention. But there are several obvious examples that emerge, particularly in the arts and crafts, where antecedents of origin lie along the border lines in the sub-continent: Kutchi-work in Gujarat and Kantha embroidery, Madhubani paintings in Bihar…


While all of these have not been registered as GIs, there remains the nagging question: how are these entities to be treated? Neither TRIPS nor the national legislation provides for the joint registration of GIs. At best, such an arrangement will have to be arrived at through bilateral or plurilateral agreements, as the case may be.


In disputes with Pakistan over GIs, the problem is twofold, as Spicy IP’s Prashant Reddy reported earlier: the political state of affairs in the country has beset legislators with more immediate concerns; and Pakistan is yet to have a GI law in place.


One suggested solution is that of countries simultaneously registering homonymous GIs, similar to the provision under section 3, Art 22.3 of TRIPs (‘homonyms’ are names which consist of, or contain, the same identifier for different geographical places):


In the case of homonymous geographical indications for wines, protection shall be accorded to each indication, subject to the provisions of paragraph 4 of Article 22. Each Member shall determine the practical conditions under which the homonymous indications in question will be differentiated from each other, taking into account the need to ensure equitable treatment of the producers concerned and that consumers are not misled.


In Beijing earlier this year, at the International Symposium on GIs, the International Trademark Association (INTA) recommended a multilateral registry for GIs along the lines of the Patent Cooperation Treaty and the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks.


The conflict resolution mechanism recommended by INTA is in-built in the principles of territoriality, priority and exclusivity that the PCT and the Madrid system espouse. The paper cites the example of Veracruz coffee beans, and Budweiser beer, illustrating that national offices and courts were best positioned to undertake an IPR priority examination. This model assumes that the question of priority of an IPR registration will differ from one country to another and prior IPR will not be registered in all countries where protection of the conflicting geographical indication is sought.



Lack of precedent makes it hard to evaluate whether the INTA model is workable; or if a joint-homonymous GI is feasible. There is little consensus between WTO member countries on GIs such as these; and clearly, there is an urgent need to evolve and implement a working model before the GI protection system loses legitimacy in the wake of such issues.


http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/gi_background_e.htm


TRIPS: GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS


Background and the current situation


A product’s quality, reputation or other characteristics can be determined by where it comes from. Geographical indications are place names (in some countries also words associated with a place) used to identify products that come from these places and have these characteristics (for example, “Champagne”, “Tequila” or “Roquefort”).


Two issues are debated in the TRIPS Council under the Doha mandate: creating a multilateral register for wines and spirits; and extending the higher (Article 23) level of protection beyond wines and spirits.