Campaign battles perception that cork isn’t eco-friendly

Workers harvest cork much the same way as they have for generations.

In recent years, some winemakers have promoted the benefits of screw-top or artificial wine stoppers. Often, the pitch has been an environmental one, arguing that these materials are somehow better than cork, because they weren’t harvested from a tree.

It turns out the anti-cork pitch probably was a myth. (A money-saving measure for wineries?) And now cork growers are fighting back with a global public relations campaign of their own to promote the use of cork.

The campaign, backed by the Portuguese government, argues that cork is the more eco-friendly alternative because cork trees are a renewable resource. [To help prove the point, Portugal’s pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai is made of cork.]

A Portuguese-government-backed campaign promotes the use of cork.

The World Wildlife Federation has even gotten in on the act, touting the importance of cork forests as habitats for wildlife.

“If the demand for cork is not maintained there’s a risk the cork oak landscapes of the western Mediterranean will, within a decade, face increased poverty, more forest fires, loss of biodiversity, and faster desertification,” the WWF says on its website. [That’s not to say that runaway production of cork is good: The WWF says that the best solution is well-managed cork forests.]

The cork industry’s argument is along those lines: That a carefully managed cork forest is completely renewable. Cork is “a material that is one hundred percent natural, recyclable and reusable, essential qualities in a more environmentally friendly and less polluted modern society,” reads a fact sheet on the campaign website, RealCork.org.

Another website, 100percentcork.org, raises eco-questions about non-natural stoppers. Manufacturing plastic stoppers or screw caps “consume(s) fossil fuels, and use(s) at least five times more energy per ton to produce, before millions of them end up in our landfills and oceans.”

While they’re at it, the cork campaigners are tackling some old complaints about cork, too, such as concerns that tainted cork can ruin a good wine.

Harvesting cork.

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RealCork.org, the cork campaign website.

100PercentCork.org, an American website promoting cork.

Sept. 7, 2010, New York Times Advertising “Campaign Spotlight” column, “Ads Urge Wineries to Stick a Cork in It”

Cork information page on the World Wildlife Federation website

Aug. 22, 2010, The Guardian, “Put a cork in it: the environmental cost of the screw cap”