CORK

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CORK THE ENVIRONMENT
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Amorims Mission Statement
To remain the worlds largest and most
technology-advanced cork company, while
fulfilling our century-old tradition of creating
wealth in harmony with Nature.
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Contents

• FSC Certification
• ISO 140001
• Sustainability Management
• Amorim Recycling Project
• Environmental Benefits of Cork
• Are Synthetics and Screwcaps Environmentally-frie
  ndly ?

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• Over 84 million hectares in more than 82
  countries have been certified according to FSC
  standards
• Several thousand products are made using FSC
  certified wood and carrying the FSC trademark
• As of January 2007 McDonalds adopts Rain Forest
  ( FSC ) certification for its UK sold caffe
• Amorim chain of custody is the worlds first
  and, so far, the only FSC-certified closure
  company

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• The FSC certification assures that
• future generations will enjoy the benefits of
  the forest.
• forest management practices are responsible and
  will be further improved.
• forest ownership rights are respected.
• wood harvesting is legal.
• rights of workers and indigenous communities are
  respected.
• areas of natural wealth and endangered wildlife
  habitat are not being negatively affected.
• Amorim ensures that the harvest of products
  maintains the forest's biodiversity, productivity
  and ecological processes.
• Amorim helps both local people and society at
  large to enjoy long term benefits and also
  provides strong incentives to local people to
  sustain the forest resources and adhere to
  long-term management plans.
• Amorim forest operations are structured and
  managed so as to be sufficiently profitable,
  without generating financial profit at the
  expense of the forest resources, the ecosystem or
  affected communities

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ISO 14001 Implemented

• Amorim commits itself to
• Guarantee, at each moment, the fulfilment of
  applicable environmental legislation
• Deepen, constantly, the knowledge about the
  environment, real and potential impacts, through
  the control of significant environmental aspects
  in order to ensure an appropriate pollution
  prevention
• Develop its business processes and behaviours in
  order to improve, continuously, its environmental
  performance, in what concerns the respect for
  production and waste management, the
  particles-release control, the noise levels in
  the exterior and the prevention and reaction in
  case of fire.
• To maintain actively and appropriately an
  Environmental Management System, implemented with
  ISO 14001 norm as a basis
• To select the technologies, adopts good
  environmental practices, provides awareness and
  training to its employees and establishes,
  periodically, the goals and improvement marks, in
  order to guarantee that it operates in conditions
  that allow the company to control, within the
  demands of its own policy, the environmental
  impacts resulting from its activity.

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Sustainability Management
As a responsible company showing its commitment
to the market, Amorim Irmãos is aware that,
todays development, cannot compromise the
development of future generations. Amorim will
implement a sustainability program, becoming
therefore the first natural cork company in the
world to develop an actual sustainability
management programme, which will be included in
its next Annual Report.
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Amorim Recycling Project

• Amorim will develop a Europe-wide Cork Recycling
  Project
• First trial-run in Germany resulted in 700 tones
  collected in one year
• Consumers, Retaillers, Wineries, Local
  Government agencies will be involved to achieve
  maximum impact
• Aim to collect 30 of all corks sold
• After being collected, corks are sent to
  Portugal, where will be treated and processed
  into cork flooring products

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Environmental benefits of Cork

• Cork is Natural, Renewable, Biodegradabel and
  Recyclable
• Nothing is wasted. As cork re-works is generated
  in the production process, it is granulated and
  returnes into the process. Even the fine
  particles of cork dust are collected and used as
  fuel that supply a substantial portion of our
  energy needs
• Cork is a renewable resource and cork oak
  forests are one of the most sustainable natural
  systems, providing the habitat of several
  endangered species and supporting one of the
  highest levels of biodiversity among European
  forests. Cork comes from the bark of the cork
  oak, and is harvested only once every nine or ten
  years, without detriment to the tree

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Environmental benefits of Cork

• Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are now 35 per
  cent higher than at pre-industrial times. The
  average annual production of cork has the
  capacity to sequester the equivalent CO2 produced
  by approx. 52 K cars
• About 300,000 sq km of land in the European
  coastal zone of the Mediterranean is undergoing
  desertification, affecting the livelihood of 16.5
  million people. Cork oaks protect the soil from
  desertification.
• No closure can match cork as a sustainable form
  of packaging, a matter of incresing importance to
  many consumers and retaillers, especially in EU
  and in USA

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Environmental benefits of Cork
The Iberian lynx is the most endangered cat in
the world, with only an estimated 100 individuals
left. Cork oak landscapes are one of their
habitats, offering them food, shelter and
breeding grounds. If prompt action is not taken,
the species is likely to become extinct in the
wild within 10 to 20 years.
The Barbary deer, found only in eastern Algeria
and western Tunisa, is Africas only and most
threatened deer species. The population decline
has been mainly due to habitat degradation and
loss as well as poaching.
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Are the Synthetics and Screwcaps environmentally
friendly ?

• The different chemical compositions of
  synthetics closures make the recycling projects
  practically impossible and uneconomic
• The Synthetics closures are not natural,
  renewable, biogradable and effectively not
  recycable
• Synthetics closures are petroleum-based products
  and required large amounts of energy in
  production, adding to hydrocarbon emissions and
  global warming
• Screwcap closure are made of aluminium with a
  non recycable liner
• Aluminium is the most energy-expensive metal of
  all. Its production is very energy intensive,
  uses vast non-renewable resources and greatly
  contributes to greenhouse emissions
• There is no evidence that screwcap closures are
  being collected and recycled. Screwcaps go to
  waste as landfill

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Far from being a burden, sustainable
development is an exceptional opportunity -
economically, to build markets and create jobs
socially, to bring people in from the margins
and politically, to give every man and woman a
voice, and a choice, in deciding their own
future. UN Secretary-General