Since publishing the first edition of its Low Carbon Objective in 2023, Tonnellerie Baron has made a point of sharing, every year, how far its efforts have come.
In an uncertain economic climate, environmental issues, and corporate social responsibility more broadly, could easily slip down the list of priorities. We believe the opposite: they must remain at the heart of everything we think and do.
Reducing our environmental footprint is never the result of a single grand gesture. It comes from a multitude of concrete initiatives, some of them very simple, which only reveal their full value when sustained over time.
In 2025, several projects were carried forward or developed around four main areas: employee mobility, the life cycle of our barrels, staff nutrition and well-being, and the recovery of our wood waste.
Favoring lower-carbon mobility
In last year’s edition, we presented the initiatives put in place to reduce the impact of our employees’ commute between home and work.
Half of them had chosen to carpool in electric vehicles.
That left the question of what to offer the other 50%.
After looking into a number of options, including bicycles made in France, Tonnellerie Baron ultimately decided to provide its employees with 15 electric-assist bicycles.
These bikes are offered to employees who live less than 10 kilometers from the workplace, giving them a lower-emission way to make their daily commute.
9,500 kilometers cycled
Since the start of 2025, the bikes made available to staff have covered 9,500 kilometers.
Taking into account the emissions linked mainly to their manufacture, estimated at 13 gCO₂/km, this use represents a saving of roughly 1.1 tonnes of CO₂.
Unlike the electric cars, which remain available on site outside working hours, the bikes are lent to employees for a period of one year, against a deposit.
This arrangement is governed by a contract that puts responsibility on each user.
Every year, a new call for applications goes out to eligible employees. The aim is twofold: to let those who wish to renew their commitment do so, and to give new employees the chance to benefit from the scheme.
Giving barrels a second life
Another question close to our hearts: how do we extend the life cycle of a raw material as noble as oak?
Every year, many barrels are replaced after only a few uses. Yet these casks can still hold real value for other winemakers or for other purposes.
Rather than destroy them or leave them unused, giving them a second life helps preserve the resource and limits the environmental impact tied to their manufacture.
That is the thinking behind Reoaked.com.
Anticipate, reuse, connect
The platform lets producers plan ahead for selling their barrels, helping them optimize the renewal of their fleet.
For buyers, it offers access to recently retired barrels, backed by the expertise and guarantees needed to ensure their quality and compliance.
Sellers can also benefit from a free, no-obligation valuation to find out what their casks are worth.
Another important consideration: proximity.
Through a geolocation system for listings, Reoaked encourages local transactions and, in doing so, helps limit transport-related emissions.
Reusing rather than producing anew: a concrete way to extend the life of a precious resource.
A vegetable garden for employee nutrition and well-being
Our environmental approach is not limited to cutting carbon emissions. It also concerns the quality of life and well-being of the people who make up the company.
At a time marked by sharp food price inflation, we wanted to launch an initiative that is at once environmental, social and collective: an 800 m² vegetable garden.
The goal is simple: to let every employee enjoy organically grown vegetables each week, while encouraging more local eating habits and helping protect their purchasing power.
A collective project
Creating this garden was also conceived as a shared adventure.
Employees helped build the ten 60-metre rows set aside for the different crops. Planting sessions organized with staff also made it possible to create an orchard made up of several species.
To keep the project’s environmental footprint as low as possible, the greenhouse structure was built out of wood.
The garden is now looked after by a full-time gardener, who favors a management approach rooted in permaculture principles.
Each week follows a simple routine: on Wednesday, the vegetables available in sufficient quantity are listed on a board. Every employee can then choose what they fancy. The next day, a crate is prepared and handed out to each of them.
Beyond the vegetables harvested, this garden above all creates a direct link between employees, production and what they eat.
Making the most of every wood offcut
Making barrels and working stave wood inevitably produces offcuts and wood dust.
Our goal is to make the most of this material, treating every scrap as a potential resource.
During barrel-shaping operations, wood dust is captured right at the source to protect operators’ health.
But recovering its value doesn’t stop there.
Turning dust into fuel
Tonnellerie Baron has equipped itself with an extraction system and machinery capable of compacting this dust, several times over, at pressures above 200 bar.
This process produces densified wood briquettes, whose calorific value is higher than that of raw oak.
They can be used, among other things, in domestic wood-burning stoves.
Several package sizes are offered to individual customers. Sales are made directly through the Tonnellerie Baron website, with delivery also available within a 50-kilometer radius.
Each year, around 250 tonnes of densified wood briquettes are sold this way.
Offcuts turned into firewood
Stave-making also generates wood offcuts.
In 2025, we chose to put them to use and offer them for sale for various purposes, in particular lighting barbecues in summer or wood stoves in winter.
More broadly, stave production generates large volumes of green wood. Only part of the initial volume of an oak log ultimately becomes stave wood.
Given how precious this resource is, we believe it is essential to make the best possible use of the parts that cannot go into stave-making.
Some of these offcuts are therefore split, packaged and sold as firewood.
Each year, around 550 tonnes of wood are recovered in this way and sold to individual customers through short supply chains.
Wood for the paper industry
Other sawing operations produce long, thin pieces of wood.
Rather than treat them as simple waste, we bundle them into faggots, tied with hemp rope.
They are then sold to a partner who chips them for use in papermaking.
This channel now recovers around 850 tonnes of wood every year.
And what about tomorrow?
These various actions are not an end point.
They represent one more step in an approach we intend to sustain over time.
Throughout the life of the company, we will keep looking for new ways to reduce our environmental impact, optimize our consumption and make the best possible use of the resources we draw on.
Some emissions will remain unavoidable. They will need to be offset or accounted for through verified and verifiable actions, carried out with certified organizations. We are one of 150 corporate sponsors of Plantons pour l’Avenir, and we support the development of reforestation techniques and practices suited to a changing climate.
But our priority remains, above all, to cut emissions at the source.
That means continually improving our practices and innovating, but also raising awareness and training our employees and, more broadly, our entire ecosystem.
Because the environmental transition cannot rest on a single company or a handful of isolated actions. It is built collectively, over time, through concrete, measurable decisions.
Our Low Carbon Objective therefore continues to pursue its commitments, year after year.
