An important milestone occurred in April 2021 when Viña y Concha Toro, after an evaluation process that lasted more than two years, was certified as a B Company. You may wonder what is a B Company? Although it is a global movement that redefines what business success is, briefly, B Companies are those that meet the highest standards in terms of social and environmental performance, transparency and corporate responsibility.
Although there are around 4,000 Certified B Companies in more than 150 industries and 74 countries, Viña Concha y Toro is the largest winery to join this movement.
This historical fact in the B community in Chile, is part of a continuous work in the field of sustainability that the winery has been working on for more than a decade. Where an important part of the commitment has been to measure its social and environmental impact, considering the consequences of its decisions in the long term.
Under this philosophy, the actions of care and conservation of the environment have been fundamental. And of course, as wine is a product from the living soils in which the vines grow. But whose territory is not only home to vineyards, but also history, native vegetation and wildlife.
In order to preserve this biodiversity, Viña Concha y Toro became, in 2019, the first winery in the world to certify its forest heritage under FSC certification for conservation purposes (FSC ® -C154029). This certification commits it to work on a series of conservation actions, including having a forest fire prevention plan, restoration of degraded areas, monitoring the biodiversity present, among others. All these actions must be implemented in the 4,272 hectares of Mediterranean sclerophyll native forest that the company owns and protects in Chile, also through its Native Forest Conservation Program.
Located in the Central Valley of the country, the sclerophyll forests are distributed within nine estates. One of them is Fundo Idahue, which with 1,632 hectares in the VI Region, stands out for its forests of high conservation values, which are closely connected with the Casillero del Diablo Merlot, Casillero del Diablo Malbec and Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon wines, as it is the place where the grapes that originate these red blends are grown.
But also, a forest that shelters a great wealth of native vegetation and wildlife, including endemic species that are in threat such as the Rana Chilena or the Gato Guiña. Which, added to the discovery of Pre-Columbian archaeological remains, transform this estate into an area that the vineyard invites us to respect and value, as part of the commitment they acquired by playing a leading role in the conservation of this type of native forests.
