A Sustainable Wine Business

Because being carbon neutral is just the beginning

We believe being Carbon Neutral is just the beginning.

We believe every business has a duty of care to minimise its impact on the environment, which is why Lanchester Wines and the wider Lanchester group of companies, which includes Greencroft Bottling, has worked tirelessly over the last decade to ensure sustainability is at our core.

There is, unfortunately, no ‘one size fits all’ solution when it comes to sustainability and so we’ve invested considerably to identify which changes we can make to lessen our effect on our planet.

 

Our business’ greatest opportunity to make a change is through minimising our reliance on fossil fuels. As such, we’ve invested around £10million in renewable heat and energy generation at our sites across the North East of England and today our business is powered almost completely by renewable wind and solar energy

Our four wind turbines produce around 5.5million kWh (kilowatt hours) of clean, renewable electricity per year. We use around 42% of this electricity to run operations at our Greencroft Estate (including Lanchester Wines and Greencroft Bottling) with the remaining electricity – enough to power 800 three-bedroom homes – feeding into the National Grid for use within our local community.

We have a 41 kilowatt solar array on the roof of Lanchester Wines’ office complex, which is calculated to produce enough clean electricity to cover our day-to-day use. The chemical reactions which occur within solar panels are more efficient at cooler temperatures so County Durham’s bright and sunny, yet rather chilly, weather is perfect for our solar panels.

We are installing 2 Megawatts of solar panels on the roof of Greencroft Two which will create around 1.7m kilowatt hours of electricity per year

As a business, we continue to make choices about our long-term sustainability which go above and beyond both legislation and common practice. We are pioneering world-changing heat pump technology using water from disused mines at our warehouses in Gateshead which not only enables our customers to further reduce their carbon footprint but also revolutionise how clean technology may be used in former mining areas across the world.

World Changing Technology

For our latest endeavor we are pioneering world-changing heat pump technology using water from disused mine workings at our warehouses in Gateshead. Working with organisations including The Coal Authority, Environment Agency and numerous academics, we are the first business in the UK to draw heat from disused coal mines

  • Our x2 Open Loop Water Source Heat Pumps have a combined capacity of 4mW (4million Watts) of heat
  • We are currently heating 33,445m2 (360,000 ft2) of warehouse, maintaining an ambient temperature perfect for storage of wine. We hope to extend the size of this area further as we refine the technology

 

Our aspiration is to become a thought leader and sharer of best practice. As a privately owned, family business we are in a largely unique position which enable us to experiment and take risks in order to find new solutions, and we want others to emulate our successes – we believe what is good for the environment is good for us all.

 

Looking to the Future

Our business continues to grow and our sister company, Greencroft Bottling, has started work on its new development – Greencroft Two. When building is complete, Greencroft Two will become one of the world’s most sustainable wine bottling facilities, powered by renewable wind and solar power.

*drone footage and photography courtesy of Alan Armstrong, Director of Quality at Greencroft Bottling

Find out more

All energy is precious, so we work hard to save it too.

Insulation

We’re currently building Greencroft Two, our new home for Greencroft Bottling which incorporates leading-edge dual insulation and photovoltaic panels. Developed by Kingspan, the PowerPanels have a U-Value of 0.12, as does insulation fitted on the walls, which is the highest standard of insulation making Greencroft Two virtually airtight.

Lights

 

LED and low energy lighting projects now cover our lighting requirements

Movement-sensitive lighting areas have been installed throughout company-owned buildings to establish the most effective solution for our operations. Combined, this has resulted in around £40,000 savings a year

Warehouses

Over 18,580m2 (200,000 ft2) of additional 240mm roof insulation (along with the existing 120mm) totaling 360mm

Warehouse roofs double or tripled skinned (depending on the property)

These provide year-round protection from extremes of temperatures, negating the need for additional heating and cooling

Office

Our windows are high tech glass which helps us to control the temperature, keeping us cool in summer and warm in winter

We heat and cool the building using air source heat pumps which extract the heat from the air outside

Our lighting is power-saving and automatic, turning itself off when a room is not in use, thus conserving energy

Since their construction, the three turbines at our County Durham site have generated enough electricity to power around 3,500 average 3-bedroom homes for 3 years.