As strange or absurd as it may seem, a bottle cork can reduce your refrigerator’s energy consumption. How is this possible? Placing a cork in the fridge takes up space inside the refrigerator, leaving less room for the air that the compressor has to cool. They help moderate the air by directing the cold towards the areas that need it the most evenly.

Clarissakork in Vorarlberg is a business manufacturing sustainable interior and lifestyle products from cork. It was therefore natural for the architects Bischof & Zündel to construct a sustainable building using cork, hemp, and timber to show that these natural products are ideal building materials.

The development comes at a time when food safety remains a global concern. Rapid and affordable detection methods like this cork-based sensor could help prevent harmful substances from reaching consumers and support regulatory efforts to maintain high standards in food production.

Cork, the spongy natural material that stops bottles and pads pinboards, received a Trump tariff exemption. The renewable material appears in products from purses and shoe soles to fishing rods. It comes from the bark of the cork oak tree, Quercus suber. 

A century-old memoir sparked an extraordinary real-life quest that led Serge Arnaudiès to the tallest cork oak ever recorded. Hidden in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, this ancient tree—now certified by Guinness World Records—became Arnaudiès’s life’s mission to protect.

Wine Business Monthly has recognized Patrick Spencer, Natural Cork Council Executive Director, as one of its 2025 Wine Industry Leaders—recognizing his critical role in securing the tariff exemption that protected natural cork from sweeping import duties.