Sustainability in the vineyard: What is going on, and how to do more of the good stuff?
(4 min read)
We all talk a lot about sustainability in wine, but what does any of us know about what this actually looks like in the real world?
Through our Bottle Weight Accord, we know quite a lot about what the industry is doing to lightweight bottles, why, and how. But what about sustainability at vineyard level? Sure, there are lots of examples and case studies out there, but what do these isolated, and arguably ahead-of-the-curve, instances tell us about the wider picture?
The truth is that, despite growing attention to vineyard sustainability, the industry lacks a credible, globally consistent view of current practice.
This is where our Sustainable Vineyard Practice Survey comes in. I’ve written in this column before about the logic of our Sustainable Vineyard approach in bringing together our work on labour practices and viticulture.
As a key part of this, the Survey is our means to establish a clear, credible baseline of labour and viticulture practice data, and show us how these things are developing over time.
A trial version of this survey has just gone live. It is anonymous and is open to all interested participants. You can find it here: Sustainable Vineyard Practice Survey
In addition to providing this first credible baseline of data, our survey approach does two things. Firstly, it provides a voice for the downstream to say, ‘this is where we are on sustainability issues, but also where we are struggling.’ This will enable us to work with retailers and others about how best they can support better sustainability practices at a vineyard level.
Secondly, the survey will reveal where good practice exists, be that on viticultural innovations or engagement on labour standards. Those good practices can then be celebrated and shared as lessons for others to build on.
However, it will also flag up systemic risks: if a region is not engaging properly on labour issues, our survey will pick that up. This will enable a coherent, joined up approach by the industry to address these.
I realise that our survey could be seen as ‘another damn questionnaire’ but we have been careful to make it as easy to respond to as possible. We also hope that the ability for producers to flag to the wider world what they are doing will be a good incentive to spend 15 minutes of their time filling it in.
So, other than encouraging any growers reading this article to respond to the Survey, what else are we doing to drive responses?
This brings us to another key part of our approach: the vital importance in this whole thing of regional wine organisations. Groups such as the CIVB in Bordeaux, Wine Australia and South African Wine are critical players in making sustainability happen, and therefore key partners for SWR.
Their importance lies in a number of things. Firstly, they are able to identify the key sustainability challenges in their regions and foster joined-up ways of addressing these. Secondly, they are able to be a voice to communicate on behalf of their region to other parts of the supply chain. Thirdly, they are a vehicle through which good practices from elsewhere in the world can be channelled. For all these reasons, they are vital to the work of SWR. These organisations will be key partners in distributing our questionnaire.
SWR will also be holding a series of webinars with some of our key regional partners to explore what challenges they face, and to showcase what is being done to address these. Each of these will provide fascinating insights into sustainability practice in different parts of the world.
By the early autumn we hope to have, even if only in part, to have begun to sketch a real picture of what is going on with sustainability in different parts of the world. Both through responses from individual growers via the survey, and from the insights from regional groups through the webinars, SWR will be leading the process of getting a clearer view of how practices are changing, and where risks may exist.
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