A much shorter version of this article first appeared in Drinks Business, July 2011.

With pioneering icons such as Domaine Leflaive and Domaine Pierre Morey who live and breathe biodynamics, Burgundy has long been at the forefront of green viticulture.  But in a perfect marketing storm where almost everyone says they’re doing sustainable viticulture, even if they don’t really, how do you separate marketing myth from substantive sustainability?

Outside of conventional production, and the biodynamic niche, there are two main ways of producing wine in Burgundy – sustainable development, and organic.  Both can be certified, meaning at least minimum standards have been achieved.

Certified organic is one thing that feels reasonably well understood, and such vineyards in Burgundy have grown rapidly.  In 2001, it is estimated that about 1% of Burgundy vineyards were certified organic.  Jean-Hugues Goisot of certified organic and biodynamic Domaine Goisot, said “In the last year, there’s been an increase of 45-55% of the surface of vineyards certified. By 2011, 9-10% will be certified.”

It’s not just that more producers are certifying organic. There appears to be a sea change in the mindset of producers. Anne Parent of Domaine Parent believes “the next 10 years will be a hundred times quicker than last 10 years” even though her own evolution has been steady, “Before me, my brother stopped herbicides, just ploughed. When I took over 12 years ago I said we need to go further.  We didn’t know exactly how to go, so we did some soil and leaf analysis. We observed each plot, and did what it needs, no more, no less.  In 10 years it was a long process.  In 2005/6 we started to work some plots organically. We did more tests, and in 2009, we decided to go organic.”

The downside she said “is it costs more. You use less quantity especially with an efficient pneumatic sprayer, but have to do more treatments because the efficacy of the product is short.”

But, she added, over and above the organic regulations, she is working this way to “protect the soil and the terroir, and for our health. It’s not a fashion, it’s a long term philosophy.”

At Maison Champy, for winemaking technical director Dimitri Bazas, the proof of their non-certified biodynamic techniques is in his team’s pudding, as it were. He said “the success is that the team finish the products in their own gardens. In the field they are doing an application because they have observed. It is no longer a dogmatic spraying regime.”

Return to traditional practices

Certainly producers appear to be thinking more about what they are doing, and not spraying according to an industrial regime, by the calendar.  Part of this is due to a system of agriculture raisonée (AR) which, for viticulture, comes in the form of a 90-point specification, issued by FARRE, the national association of agriculture raisonée.

Some of the points are obligatory, others not. In addition, producers can be third-party certified in AR, or not, as they choose. And herein lies a serious communication issue.  Denis Fetzmann, director of Domaine Louis Latour said “agriculture raisonée’ is a light control and not generally very successful in France.  Everyone says ‘we are in sustainable development’ but [when it is not certified] no one controls it.”

It’s difficult to have much confidence in a non-certified system which is open to misuse. And, Fetzmann added the standards “are checked every five years. We have had three audits since 2004, and the standards have not changed” so there is, so far, no tightening of tolerances over time, which should be an essential part of any certification, in order to increase levels of sustainability over time.

And while agriculture raisonée allows the use of synthetic chemicals, whereas organic and biodynamic use natural applications, including sulphur and copper, the benefits are that the system considers more than just the vineyard plot: it sits on the tripod of economic viability, human health and protection of the environment.

“It’s not just for the winery, but for the whole estate, and for the safety of the workers” said Jérôme Sordet, of agriculture raisonnée-certified Domaine Coste-Caumartin, adding “before I was certified, on average I did 12 sprays, spraying when it was easiest, about every 10 days. Now it’s about 8 sprays, taking into account the weather, and I use about 15% less. I have been taught how to read the leaves, so I see if treatment is needed or not.”

But Sordet spends 15-20% more time in the vineyards on his 12 hectare property. And he and his team now meet twice a day. “It’s an optimisation of work” he said, “it doesn’t cost any more.  My labour cost has not come down, I still have the same four people, but they are doing more diverse things.”

Essentially AR measures are common sense, though the approach requires a pre-existing or learned environmentally-protective mentality. Some people were already doing them, and now it is part of a programme. And sometimes a lot of small changes can add up.  The system also includes traceability protocols.

Taking some aspects a little further is the private organisation Terra Vitis, which is a member of FARRE.  Its members must adhere both to the AR specification, and to the third-party certified Terra Vitis specification, which was created in 2009.  Their viticultural advisor, Jean-Henri Soumireu-Lartigue said “we integrated new commitments dealing with biodiversity, energy use and water quality.”

Given that synthetic chemicals, and systemic rather than contact products, are permitted under AR, he also said “the association selects synthetic chemicals based on their toxicity. The more toxic chemicals are forbidden” adding “we generally use about 30% less chemicals. But we also use less toxic chemicals.”

Chemical build up in the soil or not, a return to terroir and typicity is a driving force for some to adopt a less synthetic approach to their winemaking.

Jean-Hugues Goisot, organic since 2000 and biodynamic since 2005, said “between 1990 and 2000, I had an impression that we lost, little by little, the typicity of our wine. We were more  chardonnay and sauvignon blanc rather than Cote d’Auxerre and St Bris – chardonnay from our domaine and from Australia and Chile were getting closer and closer.”

In 1996, they tested a four hectare parcel under organic.  Goisot said “in blind tastings, we knew each time which was organic, it was more typical of the region. We preferred the organic wine every time, therefore we took the decision to make everything organic.“

It’s also such a return to terroir that has driven Maison Champy, the oldest negociant in Burgundy, towards organic.  Their technical director, Dimitri Bazas, said “It’s a return to the experiential, it’s a re-questioning.  It’s good to be awake. It’s about terroir wines – wines from Champy must be Pommard before they are Champy.”

He said “you cannot do this in conventional farming. When you use synthetic fertilisers, the same fertilisers in Pommard and Volnay, the roots stay 10 to 15cm in the soil. If you don’t have microbiological life, if you don’t have roots in the subsoil there is no terroir.” And he added “the sustainable thing, terroir, is here for long time, but we are here for short time.” Pragmatically, he added, the idea is to produce better grapes.

Maison Champy was certified organic from the 2010 vintage. Joseph Drouhin has also recently completed the paperwork to convert, even though an organic way of working has been in place for over 20 years. Fourth generation estates manager Philippe Drouhin said “in 1988, fresh out of viticultural school, I was convinced the synthetic way of managing vineyards was risky and might be a dead end. In 1988, yellow and red mites were a big problem. The beginning of the discovery for me was Typhlodromus pyri, a small mite that eats the other mites. The new chemicals [at the time] had to avoid damaging the pyri; and no-one now uses chemicals against yellow and red mite.”

Of their recent organic certification Drouhin said “we wanted the organic certificate, even though it’s never used commercially. Now it becomes a selling point for some estates, and there is a tendency for some estates to let people think they were organic when they weren’t.  I felt in 2006 it was necessary to ask for certification.  It changed nothing but the paperwork and expense. It was just to be able to prove we are actually doing it.“

Such a quiet approach is not unique in Burgundy. Maison William Fèvre doesn’t shout that they are certified AR, plus half their 50 hectares of vineyards are certified organic. Didier Seguier, their winemaker said “it’s difficult to manage organic viticulture quickly. We want to be all organic, maybe it will take another five years.” But he added “the other 25 hectares have only three chemical treatments.”  Fèvre have not decided if they will put organic on the label.  Seguier said their aim was “to use less and less chemical product.”

Without the certificate though, accurate and comprehensible communication remains a challenge, as Drouhin found. Ironically, Christophe Chauvel, the head viticulturist at Albert Bichot, who practise aspects of AR, but are not certified, said the way we work “is not a marketing thing, it’s a philosophy.  It’s better for me to practise it, but not talk about it,” which seems to be the position Drouhin were at a few years ago.

Hill of Corton

A significantly louder line in the sand is being drawn in Aloxe Corton, where Domaine (not Maison) Louis Latour, certified ISO 14001, and certified agriculture raisonée, launched the ‘Paysage de Corton’ initiative in July 2010.  For Domaine director Denis Fetzmann, “the argument is not synthetic versus organic” For him, the “new challenge is the protection of territory – the hill of Corton”, encouraging all producers to think of the whole appellation and its wider environment.

The Paysage de Corton project aims to cover the 100 domaines on the hill of Corton in three villages – Pernand-Vergelesses, Aloxe-Corton and Ladoix-Serrigny – covering a thousand hectares of vineyard and non-vineyard land.

Fetzmann said, with organic, “you are chief on your little plot. Everything is your choice. But we have questions which are not for one plot, for example, erosion – it needs controlling, there are some steep plots. We decide among several domaines to slow the water flow, or to build some stone walls.”

Also, he said “biodiversity is not just about your plot. We have made traps everywhere, working for 10 years to understand if the way of viticulture in Burgundy is compatible with life in the soil, air, insects etc.”

Fetzmann’s mantra is “terroir and territory. This is the new way of viticulture” he said. The 1,000 hectares of the hill comprises 550ha of vineyards, the rest is roads, forest, buildings etc, but the initiative aims to get the whole working holistically.  He said they are working “to manage a territory intelligently, and not alone. For example we want to create more hedgerow corridors from high to low points to help life circulate” on the hill of Corton, to aid biodiversity, and they have two research students working to this, and other, ends, one financed by Louis Latour, the other by the BIVB.

He added, “I’ve already worked for one year on the project … though the work is for the next 30 years”, so he’s not expecting too many quick wins.  But at the first meeting in July 2010, 40 domaines, including Drouhin and DRC have already signed up to the initiative, as have all the organic growers in Corton. This shows there is a collective will to change attitudes and practices for the environmental better.

As with Burgundy’s biodynamic icons, the Corton Hill project could be a beacon of biodiversity for Burgundy.

My research trip to Burgundy in July 2010 was sponsored by the ‘Discover the Origin‘ campaign.

Quinta do Roeda

A decade ago, the Douro vineyards were a brown, bare-earthed environment, where patches of dry, Mediterranean climate-adapted scrubland juxtaposed with bare earth beneath vines. As Rui Cunha, of Secret Spot wines said “the notion of a good vineyard was one without vegetation.”

But whilst perception may be of an arid, brown environment, the Douro is not uniformly dry, nor brown.  Rainfall is around 900mm in the west, near Regua, plentiful for vine growth, to around 400m in the east near the Spanish border, which is extremely dry.  This means there is enough moisture to make powdery mildew an annual issue and downy mildew a less regular issue in much of the valley, so spraying to keep vineyards clean was normal practice.

This picture is changing as producers get to grips with reducing regular herbicide use, farming more sustainably, and looking for options to deal with arguably the region’s biggest problem – erosion.  

Combating soil erosion is crucial not only because slopes are steep, but also because vineyards are pretty much the only form of livelihood for many subsistence farmers, so its preservation is essential.  Paul Symington, managing director of Symington Family Estates, makers of Graham’s, Cockburn’s, Warre’s, Dow’s ports, summarised the Douro environment as one of “unproductive soil, steep slopes and a monoculture of 44,000 hectares of vineyards. It’s a tough environment.”

An attempt to make it less tough in the 1980s saw the development of earth-banked terraces – patamares – which may have been easier to cultivate using machines, but the bare-earth slopes are hugely susceptible to erosion during winter rains and summer winds. Cunha said these terraces were “two rows of vines, and an earth slope without stone. But you get erosion, and you get irregular maturity on the two rows: hot sun on outside, higher humidity on inside. So you need more herbicide, which results in more erosion” in a vicious cycle.

And with the modern ‘up and down’ planting, Cunha said “more than 20% slope and you get erosion, or it’s difficult for a tractor” to pass. 

It is the original stone terraces with wall and flat vineyard surface  that are the best ‘anti-erosion’ terracing system, but there are not so many of these.

With and without cover crop

Cover crops are the simple solution of combating soil erosion. Plant roots help bind the soil, and provide a close-to-ground wind break. Symington said “we thought the cover crop would compete with the vine for humidity.  We have to mow it, and in summer it dies down. There’s a lot of wind in summer every day, and the dry stubble breaks up the wind and doesn’t let the wind erode so much.”

At the Fladgate Partnership, makers of Taylor’s, Croft and Fonseca ports, their viticulturist Antonio Magalhães said “the wind helps to keep vegetation healthy, but causes havoc on un-rooted soils.” They are using red clover because “in winter it protects against erosion. It keeps more life and water in the soil. At the time of budburst, we need the water for the vine, so we mow the vegetation. Then at the end of April, beginning of May, the vegetation dies naturally. It protects against erosion and doesn’t need water.“

The dying down of the cover in summer is key so as not to compete with the vines for reserves of water. Alves de Sousa of Quinta da Gaivosa said his cover crop was “ideally spontaneous vegetation, or we use something from the bean family to fix nitrogen, or with a cereal that doesn’t compete with vineyard needs because the cereal dies in summer.”  

The roots of mown cover crop still help to bind the soil together, reducing susceptibility to erosion.  Plus all this cover crop is encouraging bugs, which allows a more natural approach to disease prevention and cure.  Cunha added “so far we’ve planted grasses to fight erosion, to make the soil healthier, and to help combat heat. We cut and make mulch, which shades [the soil] and reduce evaporation, and reduces erosion.” 

As a result of this growing use of cover crop, the Douro vineyards are greening over, literally and environmentally.  

My research visit to the Douro was sponsored by the ‘Discover the Origin’ campaign.

“Scientists will tell you this is all rubbish, it has not been proved, but when you reach the level of taste, of smell, something which is not tangible, proof has no real meaning.

“Why does biodynamics play its part in the quality of wine? I start with taking an example: if you were in the vineyard in February, or the beginning of March, in the northern hemisphere, you will see nothing – pruned vines, small sticks with tiny buds. If you return to the same spot six months later, you have branches, leaves, flowers, grapes.

“In six months several tonnes of matter per hectare have appeared. If you take away water from that matter – to get dry matter – 94% of that dry matter comes from photosynthesis. This is a very important key to understand biodynamics. Photosynthesis converts the sun’s forces into matter. 94% of dry matter every year comes from photosynthesis.

“From spring to [autumn] a vine, a plant, is incarnating forces of something intangible, call it wavelengths or frequencies, into matter.  Non-matter becomes matter. This is the key to biodynamics.

“When you say to people we use 10g, at most 100g, per hectare of biodynamic preparations, scientists say this rubbish. They say it cannot work, because this person has been trained in the physical way.

“The main part of a plant is to take something intangible and to contract it into something tangible. The biodynamic preparations have to be viewed as catalysts.

“I describe biodynamics as being a better acoustic. [Imagine] a man with a splendid voice singing in subway [versus] singing in beautiful old church.

“So we help vines to catch a little deeper these forces which will become, in the end, taste and smell, structure and complexity in your glass.  All this is intangible work, in the same way that if you see a beautiful painting, would you give it a score [out of twenty]? You cannot come up with measure for something that belongs to a non-physical world.

“So, with biodynamics, we try to help the soil to feed the root, and to help light and heat to feed the leaves. To help photosynthesis and help the work of the roots.

“You need to understand the forces to understand biodynamics.  Gravity, which means contraction, are the forces that go to the centre of the earth. The opposite forces – sun attraction – are the ‘levitation forces’.  Some biodynamic preparations work up, others work downward, some are in the middle.

“You want an understanding of your place and an understanding of how you can balance these forces in the place where you live. And appellation contrôlée is a specificity of taste from the earth, and a specificity of taste from the climate, so we want to help the leaves catch the microclimate, and help the roots catch the micro-geology. And you want the vine to be as capable as possible to do this process (up and down).

“A side effect of what I’m telling you here is that a clone is a nonsense. Clones have been invading the vine for 30 years and more. A clone takes one vine and makes lots of copies. It is absurd quality-wise. How do you create complexity? But clones are easy to manage because they all flower at same time, and are harvested at the same time. But they are missing the complexity that each vine wants to express.

“Once you understand that you want photosynthesis to be as good as possible, and the work of the root to catch the soil as well as possible, you want the vine to be as lively and as sensitive as possible.

“What has modern farming done to appellation contrôlée?  First, weed killers, which destroy the life of the soil. Then the root cannot feed itself. Roots need the assistance of lot of microorganisms. Weed killers were presented to farmers in the late 50s, 60s. But after six or seven years the roots are starving so they grow back to the surface of the soil. Already the originality of the soil is destroyed.

“Then you need to bring food, so chemical fertilisers came. They are like salt; chemical fertilisers force water into a plant. This is not growth. If you stopped chemical fertilisers, the world would starve because the soil is destroyed – chemical fertilisers have been replacing the soil.  Vines are forced to grow because of the salty solution; it is forced to take up water.  

“Before weed killers and chemical fertilisers, the pressure of disease was lower, and we could solve diseases with simple products, such as copper and sulphur.  If these are used in small quantities, these are not poisons.

“Then came systemics, where molecules go in the sap, so you are sure not to have diseases. But the side effect is it poisons the sap. So on one side the downward process of the root is killed by weed killer, and [on the other] the originality of climate is weakened by systemics. The result is a crop which is not marked by the originality of the place where the vine is growing.  

“Once you understand this, you understand why organic wines are coming back, why biodynamic wines are spreading all over the world. A deeper understanding of nature, respecting nature allows good taste to be achieved. All biodynamics is, is stimulating forces which are specific to the place of the vineyard, which increase the originality of taste.   

“In biodynamics what you have in front of you, the vine, is the incarnation, through photosynthesis, of forces transformed into matter between spring and [autumn].

“With biodynamic preparations in tiny quantities, we are improving specific processes. For example if you put black plastic around the earth, some sort of death will come. So we know life on earth depends on being a member of the solar system.  What forces keep together the solar system? We don’t work at the physical level, we work with the forces that end up at the physical level.  

“With pollution, only the physical pollution of the atmosphere is covered, not the energy pollution of the atmosphere.  But if you fill the atmosphere with billions of frequencies and wavelengths, for example with satellites, antennae, you are weakening the forces that bring life to earth.

“Biodynamic preparations – we can call them Mr. potassium, Mr. calcium, Mr. phosphorus, Mr. iron – help to recreate a system of communication for the plant to receive the forces it needs to help it express itself [that help photosynthesis etc].

“You need to understand the light, heat and earth forces. Heat goes up – it destroys the earthly process [into gas]. Light goes with air. Water is the liquid state. No life on earth [exists] without going through the liquid state. Then there is the earthly level.

“Understanding polarities is what biodynamics is about. If you have a place where the earth is too strong, you can calm down the forces. And you can increase reception for other forces.  If you have too much downward force – wine has no taste. Too much cosmic force – the vine will die. So need to balance it.

“Then you need to understand with these four levels of matter [heat, light, water, earth] what is each animal. Pig manure is linked to earth, so if you are in rocky place with shallow soil, with not enough earth forces, then bring pig manure. Horses are linked to heat. In a place like Champagne, which lacks heat, bring horse manure.    

“By having a deeper understanding of nature, of the forces in each type of plant and animal, of the place where you are, the bottom or top of a valley; which aspect, once you know this, you will know how to use biodynamic preparations. … to allow the plant to express itself. Or to find for the singer the place with the best acoustic to express his voice.

“Then we reach the cellar. When we have 12 hours of day and night we have a balance of the down [gravitation] (autumn) and the up [sun attraction] spring [forces]. The day after spring, you have 1 minute more of day than night – the scale of balance has changed. All the forces are going outward. Then you have the flowering, the reception process. After summer, days are getting shorter, then the movement is a slow contraction into seed. If things are balanced, you have within the grape at the time of harvest everything in the grape that you need, to do nothing in the cellar. The opposite of what is taught in universities.

“So biodynamics is rediscovering the forces that are behind life. The behaviour and understanding of place through biodynamics allows vines to come up with more complex taste.”

We may live in a water-world with water, water everywhere, but more than 97% of the earth’s water is too salty to be drunk or be used in agriculture and industry. Most of the remaining 3% is deep underground or, even now, frozen in ice. Less than 1% of the world’s total water is usable for domestic use, farming and industry. Of this agriculture uses some 70%.  The availability of even this 0.7% of  water is increasingly unreliable, being intimately linked to climate, and therefore becoming less predictable in the face of more extreme climate events, such as extreme flood events in some countries; long term drought in others.

As it becomes more recognised that water is the new gold, stewardship programmes for water management are being created to develop systems of sustainable river basin management, considering issues such as water risk, availability, quantity, quality, and fair-share usage. 

The South African wine industry has been first out of the blocks in thinking about water from the perspective of water boundaries, i.e. catchment, or watershed, areas, which often bear no relationship to geopolitical or parish boundaries.  This approach is out of necessity, Inge Kotze, BWI co-ordinator for the WWF in South Africa said, “our wine industry is located in one of South Africa’s most water stressed provinces – where demand [for water] is already outstripping supply … wine industry expansion is curtailed largely by water availability or lack thereof.” Su Birch, CEO of WOSA added “the increasing cost of water will help drive home the awareness that we need to do something.”

Kotze pointed out the fast pace of change in environmental standards, saying “three years ago no-one had heard of a carbon calculator.  It is the same journey of learning with water footprints: standards and labelling. We need the wine industry to get on the front foot.”

So whilst the global industry may already be familiar with the concept of waste water management, Birch emphasised, “waste water management is different from reducing water usage.” The treatment and re-use of waste water is already monitored as part of the Integrated Production of Wine (IPW), and she added “WOSA is going to work with BWI over the next 12 months to start promoting water neutrality to all our producers.”

Alien invasion

Clearing alien vegetation at Vergelegen

The industry has already identified alien plant species as one of the single biggest threats to water neutrality in the Cape. They use much more water than native species and burn more regularly and at higher temperatures … and, said Kotze, “planting alien trees that grow the fastest to carbon off-set is a shocking disincentive to addressing real carbon neutrality.”

As an agricultural product the key building blocks for grapes are healthy soils and a sufficient quantity of good-enough quality water.  But in South Africa, said Kotze, “invasive alien species, such as black wattle and pine, are degrading our soil and water catchments, and altering the natural fire regime.”

Infrequent fires are an essential part of the Cape Floral Kingdom in which the Cape winelands nestle. Kotze said “in the Western Cape, fire is our friend when it comes appropriately every eight years or longer.” She said “the 2009 fires burnt for five weeks. At Lourensford, which hadn’t burnt for 12 years, 660 species were discovered soon after, so the seed bank comes back once the alien species are cleared. But over 240 acres burnt in both December 2008 and January 2009” which is too frequent. And the wine industry is also severely affected by these fires.

Not only are alien vegetation fires too frequent, they cause large scale damage to infrastructure and soil, as well as threatening property and lives. Because alien vegetation comprises woody, tall trees, Kotze said, they “result in a very high biomass or fuel load, so fires are very hot and prolonged, whereas most fynbos is just that – fine bush, usually growing to hip level, with far lower fuel load / biomass.” Added to which fynbos burns at low intensity heat in short-lived fires due to the lower biomass.

Alien vegetation fires bake soils, which prevents rain water being absorbed. Run off and rapid erosion result.   

Wetlands

Fires are one thing, but alien vegetation has also been invading the natural wetlands of the Cape. Kotze said “the entire lowlands of the Western Cape – all the flat area in and around Cape Town, up the west coast and along the southern coast were all seasonal wetlands, all underpinned by huge groundwater aquifers in the Table Mountain sandstone.”

In an epoch of climate change wetlands are a frontline defence against moderating extreme climatic events. They act as a buffer between precipitation events and demand for water by capturing water and slowing down run off. They also filter pollutants before allowing a slow replenishing of groundwater aquifers. 

Rivers flow again at Boschendal

The Western Cape wetlands, already threatened by urban development have been eroded by alien vegetation literally sucking the life force out of them. Kotze said alien species are “enormous users of water, eucalypts use up to 300 litres per tree, per day in riparian areas on a hot summer day.”  The worst culprits are blue gums, black and silver wattles. 

The strategy of water catchment stewardship would demand they be replaced with natural fynbos. “When the alien trees are removed, the wetlands reappear” said Birch, and “when the wetlands return, the indigenous flora and fauna around them return.”

Kotze said “these groundwater systems form a critical component of our water provisioning strategies,” adding they “will be developing a freshwater stewardship component to the BWI, whereby producers can choose to participate in either the conservation of critically endangered veld types (as they are currently doing) and/ or freshwater habitats (rivers, tributaries or wetlands and estuaries).”  In Elim, Dirk Human of Black Oystercatcher Wines said the hippo is “the latest addition to our wetlands, the first time in 120 years that they’ve been back.” This initiative is part of the Nuwejaars Wetlands area where private land from 25 land owners has been committed to conservation and more sustainable farming.

Elsewhere in the world

South Africa may be the only wine producing country currently looking at an industry-wide initiative, but producers in other water-stressed countries are also taking a leading position.   

New Chilean vineyards

Chile’s largest producer, Viña Concha y Toro, having already measured their carbon footprint for the past three years, is the first winery to be measuring its water footprint.  Laura Noguer, their sustainable development manager said “this is an additional step in our sustainable development strategy and an important sign of our commitment to preserving the environment and its resources.”

In January 2010 Concha y Toro linked up with Fundación Chile and the Water Footprint Network (WFN), an international organisation aimed at promoting a move to sustainable and equitable fresh water use.

Noguer explained “The water footprint of a company measures directly and indirectly used water and it is a multidimensional [measurement] of ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how much’ water is consumed, and polluted, considering the whole product supply chain.

“It also explains the type of water that is being used, for example, rainwater (green water), surface and groundwater (blue water), or polluted water (grey water).  The water footprint aims to determine all water consumption at all links in the chain, which are not available for the downstream water system: water that is evaporated (crop evapo-transpiration), withheld (dams) or is otherwise removed from the system (civil works to move water over long distances). Under this logic, contaminated water is water which is not available for later use, and therefore also computed. This methodology, which measures only the outputs of the system, has the advantage that does not allow double counting of water.”

While Concha y Toro wait for the results, potential actions are being discussed for water-use reduction, according to what the results reveal.

Errazuriz has followed in the (water) footsteps of Concha y Toro, and is also working on their water footprint in conjunction with WFN. Head winemaker Franciso Baettig said they will “calculate the Errázuriz water footprint during this season (productive year 2010-2011) by process and product.  The idea is to create an index of the water use in the vineyard and in the cellar. The second stage is to use this information in order to diminish the use of water and become more efficient in water use.”   

They are already anticipating changes to both practices and equipment. Baettig said “we are evaluating the replacement of our earth filters with crossflow filters which require less water for cleaning and washing the equipment and don’t generate earth to be disposed of.” And he added they are thinking how they can “recover all the lees from barrels which will diminish the water consumption for cleaning.”

Liquid waste treatment lagoons at Elgo, Strathbogie

Over in Australia, which, until the 2010/2011 season, had mostly been in drought since 2001, there are no industry-wide initiatives akin to the South Africa example. Though Amy Russell, recently the natural resource management coordinator at the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia and now consultant to the industry via Naturalogic, said winemaking water issues now come under the aegis of the broad environment and wine –  EntWine – program.

She highlighted the logic for a co-ordinated watershed-wide strategy, saying that “for example, in 2008/09, South Australian irrigators were only able to access 16% of their allocation because of the lack of rainfall in the Murray-Darling river system from where their irrigation water is drawn.” Already, she added, private “farm dams must be licensed so that the government can ensure that the landholder isn’t storing too much water and reducing availability to other users in the catchment.”

Necessity being the mother of invention, specific water-reduction and conservation measures are already being adopted. Russell said “conversion to drip irrigation is largely complete, with research now turning to sub-surface irrigation as potentially even more efficient. Partial root-zone drying and regulated deficit irrigation are being used with some success. In the winery, water use efficiency practices include rainwater collection from shed roofs, wastewater treatment for re-use, trigger nozzles on hoses, and dry brushing to clean equipment prior to switching on the hose.”

This sort of reduction of water use in the winery is relevant the world over, and in France, Fitou co-operative Mont Tauch is a founding member of the ‘vinegrowers in sustainable development’ movement, a certified system of improving viticultural sustainability. Among the projects that form part of this certification are a limit on water consumption, and managing waste water. They found water to clean equipment is one of the biggest users of this resource, with a machine-harvester being an especially high user, so the co-op has installed a meter to track the total quantities of cleaning water used, and have started using a pressurised water jet to reduce usage.

Research by the French water agency has been monitoring water use in the area for the past ten years, and Mont Tauch has been involved for the last five years.  This has shown that their more sustainable viticulture has “had a positive impact on the quality and protection of water” according to Jerôme Collas, their vineyard manager, adding, “we’ve done fewer treatments, so less weed killer goes into the water”, and at their Montmal estate he added “we measured water usage two years ago.  And then put on restrictions to reduce usage, by using medium pressure rather than high pressure.”

Pushing the boundaries

As biodiversity goes beyond the perimeters of the property, so does water stewardship. It goes beyond the important parameters of reducing water use and treating waste water. With effective and sustainable water stewardship, downstream shouldn’t be the worst place to be.

Vines and veldt

The key initiatives, in terms of moving a little further along the path of sustainability, are the IPW (Integrated Production of Wine) and BWI (Biodiversity and Wine Initiative).  The new one – SWSA (Sustainable Wine South Africa) – allies these two and links into the authority that governs and approves South African wine – the Wine Standards Board.  

The Board is responsible for the wine of origin scheme, which confirms the vintage, variety and South African origin of the wine. A seal is printed on every bottle of South African wine that conforms to the wine of origin scheme. 

From the 2010 vintage the Board will also confirm which wines have been made by certified IPW producers. A new, ‘sustainability’ seal exists to show conformance to IPW.  To qualify for the new seal every part of the production process must be IPW accredited – the farm/vineyard, the winery and the bottling plant. The new sustainability seal is only available to wines bottled in South Africa.

Wine of origin seal

Any wines not made to the certified IPW standards will continue to use the wine of origin seal. 

Su Birch, the CEO of Wines of South Africa, the organisation that promotes South African wine in export markets, said SWSA took its inspiration from ‘hannuwa’, the “heritage of the bushmen, who gathered good fortune by living in harmony with nature, and by not harvesting more than nature could replenish each year.”  

Birch added “we believe 50% of wines will go out with this seal in 2010, and over 80% by the 2011 vintage.”  The aim, she added of the voluntary scheme, “is to make it compulsory.”  

The industry-wide IPW scheme has been running since 1998.  It is similar to integrated farm management schemes that exist in Europe, in that it aims to reduce industrial inputs into the farming (in this case vine growing) system, reduce carbon emissions and introduce a more integrated approach to pest management, health and safety of workers, conservation of biodiversity, and treatment of waste water. The scheme requires accurate record keeping of actions in the vineyards.  

Sustainability seal

The compliance of these records is now being independently audited every three years by a third party.  Given that this scheme has been running for 12 years, Birch said “producers are finding a reduction in input costs as natural predators return.” And, she said, most of the industry already complies with IPW.

As more information on sustainability comes into the knowledge sphere, “IPW is constantly evolving with new elements introduced” said Jo Wehring, the UK market manager of Wines of South Africa, adding “so it never really stands still. Measuring and reporting on carbon will be introduced in the next stage, then we can look at how to reduce it. And the ‘pass’ mark is increasing, in 2008 a pass was 55%, in 2009 it was 60% and this year it’s 65%.”

Whilst there are some biodiversity guidelines in the IPW accreditation, producers can achieve IPW conformance – and get the new sustainability seal – without being part of the biodiversity and wine initiative. This separate BWI scheme, which has operated since 2004, exists for more comprehensive biodiversity and conservation in the Cape winelands.

This is particularly important in South Africa because the Cape Floral Kingdom, a biodiversity hotspot, is the smallest and richest plant kingdom on the planet, achieving World Heritage Site recognition in 2004.  It accounts for just 0.5% of the area of Africa yet is home to 20% of the continent’s flora.  And this region is where virtually all of South Africa’s wine production originates, so linking the two makes good sense, especially as 80% of the Cape Floral Kingdom is privately owned.

BWI - bottom left

Birch said the BWI “came about because we grow our wine in a special environment.” The aim here is to put aside land within the Cape winelands for conservation and reversion to indigenous flora.

The BWI already has 113,000 hectares under conservation status on wine farms.  There are 101,000 hectares of vineyard in South Africa, so this is a better than 1:1 ratio.  The top tier of BWI members, fifteen BWI champions, including Paul Cluver, Delheim, Oak Valley and Vergelegen, have committed more than 10% of their farms to conservation. 

As well as the new sustainability seal, individual producer labels may have details of their BWI status as well, so checking wine bottles closely will reveal degrees of increasing sustainability.

Biodiversity is the latest in a series of buzz-words in the field of sustainability as all agriculturally-based industries address the vagaries and pitfalls of mono-culture. It encompasses the an overriding need to reduce industrial chemical inputs which are generally acknowledged to denude the natural ecosystem over time.

One of biodiversity’s challenges is that it is a broad, albeit tangible, church, and as with other buzzwords, it is open to misleading communication. Dr. Linda Thomson, Senior Research Fellow at CESAR (the Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research) in the University of Melbourne, Australia explained: “biodiversity is a diverse suite of animals and plants present in any ecosystem. It’s important for agriculture, vineyards included.

Inter-row diversity, invertebrate habitat (NZ)

“If we enhance useful biodiversity, we can provide an economic reason for being interested in it: if, for example, it increases the suite of natural enemies.” Her specialty is invertebrates which she said: “underpin everything, and by enhancing the biodiversity of invertebrates, you assist with the whole chain.”

Functional biodiversity

We’re familiar with the concept of functional aspects of biodiversity being harnessed to reduce negative impacts on the environment, for example using parasitic wasps to reduce pest populations, rather than using chemicals.

Alongside such benefits, biodiversity seems to be gaining ground as economic benefits are also highlighted. Dr Maarten van Helden, associate professor at ENITA – Bordeaux University, who specialises in agro-ecology and integrated pest management, believes the economic benefit of biodiversity is an important part of the communication. He said “Farmers see biodiversity as being a functional part of the agro-ecosystem. They would normally perceive it as something that provides a service, for example, reducing pest and insects.”

Van Helden went on: “managing vineyards to be able to conserve biodiversity creates costs on one side, such as planting hedgerows, but other practices, for example mowing can be done less frequently.” However such connections may not always be clear-cut, as Philippe Bardet of Château Val d’Or in St Emilion, whose commitment to biodiversity has been growing for 15 years, said “we have fewer passages through the vineyard in a tractor, but savings are balanced because we need to spend more time on personal inspection in the vineyard.”

The entire 1,500 hectare Saumur-Champigny appellation has recruited van Helden to help with biodiversity. They asked him to create a landscape management plan which would reduce insect pests in the area. Van Helden said: “We looked at pest insects across the whole appellation and showed the main pest insect was grape berry moth (Lobesia); it is the main insect of monoculture and is reduced in non-mono culture.” A growing 25 km of hedgerows is one of the results.

Vineyard worker? (Chile)

Vice president of the producers’ syndicate, Fredrik Filliatreau, for whom this project was his main pre-occupation for six years, during his presidency of the syndicate, said “this is a big step for us. We’re not looking to transform the appellation into organic. The main idea is to make growers think about ecology. A lot of the growers over 50 years old; they have wonderful experience, but may not be very sensitive about ecology. But they are pleased to be involved: it’s good for their wallets because they use less money. And it’s better for the ecology.” The syndicate has funded a full time co-ordinator to develop the biodiversity work in the appellation and wider community.

The idea is clearly gaining pace in France. At the end of 2009 St Emilion launched an appellation-wide biodiversity initiative under the technical aegis of Philippe Bardet. He said it all “starts with respect for biodiversity. You have to think it before you do it. Viticulturalists will not change three generations of practice overnight.”  The idea, he said, was “not to introduce rules into St. Emilion, but to understand the interactions between all living things and their viticultural ecosystem.”

Thomson’s work in Australia on the potential economic benefit of shelter belts was positive. She said: “you can buy some animals commercially – lady beetles, some parasitoids, such as trichogramma. These are little insects that lay eggs within the egg of something else. One single trichogramma female will lay her eggs into many moth eggs. We compared the number you get from vegetation to the cost of buying those from a commercial supplier, and found the piece of vegetation is worth thousands of dollars in respect of pest control.”

Community, conservation and collateral benefit

Even with evidence of the economic argument, the biodiversity picture is, well, diverse, and it’s closely linked with what’s outside the plot of vines.  The pursuit of biodiversity requires land that is not being used for crop. 

But it doesn’t mean abandoning parts of commercial vineyards. Van Helden said “normally viticulture does not occupy all the space. There’s often 5-25% of surface not used to plant vines.” Thomson said “producers [in Australia] are working towards 10% of their land under alternative vegetation,” adding “aiming for 10% is not always a sacrifice: some regions within vineyards are not suitable for vines. And there is concern about chemicals in communities, so vegetation belts may be seen as a protective screen.”

The whole community is being involved in the Saumur-Champigny project, where, Filliatreau said: “It’s not just about vineyards. Our entire zone is 60 square kilometres, and we are only 1,500 ha. We have a full-time person at the syndicat to develop biodiversity with the growers and with the villages.” 

Collateral benefit? (Argentina)

The conservation aspect was a driver in South Africa, where the biodiversity and wine initiative (BWI) grew, at least in part, out of a need to conserve the rapidly dwindling Cape Floral Kingdom. It’s one of around 30 biodiversity hotspots in the world, which by definition, has lost more than 70% of its original habitat.

Inge Kotzé, BWI project co-ordinator said: “we have 156 producers accredited by BWI and 118,000 ha now written into long term conservation.” This is more than the entire South African vineyard hectarage. She added: “an equally important achievement of this project is the amount of area cleared and maintained free of invasive alien plant species, estimated at least 50,000 hectares, with long term alien clearing activities underway.” The ‘aliens’ for example, pines and gums, are water-hungry so their removal makes available a greater proportion of water to native vegetation, and lessens the frequency-risk of sporadic fires.

The collateral benefit from greater biodiversity is a theme picked up by Su Birch, CEO of WOSA, an industry organisation which promotes South African wine abroad, who said “there are some species that are more useful than others – baboons are not very useful – but it is about balance. Once the vineyards grow along side natural habitat the input costs are hugely reduced as nature gets things in balance: for example more insects mean more guinea fowl, more guinea fowl means the lynx return, more moles mean the owls return.”

New Zealand, another biodiversity hotspot, also has unique flora to conserve. Philip Manson, science and innovations manager at New Zealand Winegrowers said they are “looking at native species to bring back into the vineyard. You get a double effect of enhancing nature’s systems and retaining native vegetation.”

And Manson highlighted the native NZ falcon as a conservation project-cum-collateral benefit to the wine industry. The NZ falcon is rarer than the kiwi. Falcons have re-colonised the Wairau Plains, in Marlborough, from which they’d been driven by over a 100 years of man’s influence by sheep farming and latterly vineyards. Not only are there now 27 falcons in the plain, which it is hoped will become a interlinking breeding population with other populations in more remote locations, but Manson said, there’s “evidence that where the birds are based, the damage to grapes is significantly lower.” Bird damage, especially at harvest, costs the NZ wine industry around NZ$70m annually.

Though industry is at a foetal stage of understanding the functional and collateral benefits of biodiversity, the goal must be for more stable, diverse, agricultural systems.  Bardet said “if you’ve got balanced biodiversity in an agro-system, over time it is more stable. So when an accident or disease happens, the system regenerates more quickly than if it’s just vines.”

In 2002, the Champagne region undertook an environmental impact assessment, from which a target reduction of carbon emissions by 25% by 2020 has been set, and a reduction of 75% by 2050.

Lighter Champagne bottle

Laurent Panigaï, head of viticulture at the CIVC (comité interprofessionnel du vin de champagne) said “the carbon footprint was studied, the whole footprint including external inputs into production.” They found that growing grapes and making wine is only one quarter of the carbon footprint, but that packaging accounted for a third of the footprint in 2003, and of this third, bottles alone represented 17%.

To achieve the target level of reduction, Panigaï said “we set up a climate action plan with five directions [buildings viticulture, oenology/services, transport and multi-disciplinary projects]. We have 17 R&D programmes, with some 40 initiatives under way or in the pipeline.”

The first of these is the lighter weight glass bottle, which has actually been in development for the last decade, before the sustainability agenda came to the urgent fore. The quick win for producers, which the CIVC hope will result in deep uptake, includes the fact that no new cellar equipment is needed. The new bottle is ready to go. It’s also pretty much the same shape, and has plenty of pressure resistance for the bubbles.

Panigaï said some bottles are already on the market, and the “target for next tirage [bottling with yeast/sugar for the second fermentation] of 2011, is that 80-90% of Champenois will use these bottles.”

If the overall target for lightweight bottles is met, i.e. everyone in the industry uses them, this will shave of nearly 4.5% of the targeted 25%. It’s a good start, but much more needs to be done in the coming decade.

One of the other potential opportunities is re-directing the annual prunings. Champagne produces 150,000 tonnes of waste wood biomass of prunings each year. Panigaï said “two-thirds [the canes] is useful for our soils as a good mulching. But one third is lost, as trunks and cordons are burned.” He said, if 50,000 tonnes could be transferred into local biogas creation, this would account for a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, so a little more than the lighter bottles. But, he said, this is a mid-term solution.

Scientists have discovered CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased 30% faster than they expected since 2000. Industries are doing an enormous amount of work on calculating emissions, and improving efficiencies, but is there yet a best practice scenario for measuring and communicating a consistent message on environmental credentials?

Carbon footprints

Carbon footprints, which measure greenhouse gas emissions, are making tracks, but there are a number of available methodologies, including Bilan Carbone, which was used by Oeneo to study their closure types, and CarboNZero in NZ, used by Marlborough’s New Zealand Wine Company, which makes brands such as Grove Mill and Sanctuary.   

Different schemes use different, and therefore potentially non-comparable, methodologies. To counter this, a lot of work is being done by the Carbon Trust, Defra and BSI Global to produce a generic methodology for calculating greenhouse gas emissions, which, they hope, will be widely adopted, even going so far as to say they hope at some point in the future the generic methodology will become an international standard (ISO).

The work is being done via a Publicly Available Specification – PAS 2050 – which measures the embodied greenhouse gas emissions of products and services. In the food and drinks industries, Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, the Co-operative Group, Scottish and Newcastle and Tesco are all part of the second phase of pilot partners trialling the draft specification.  

A spokesperson for BSI Global said “Part of the PAS process has been to identify and assess existing methods for the measurement of greenhouse gas emissions.  PAS 2050 is intended as the first step towards a future internationally agreed method for organisations to measure the GHG emissions embodied in their products and services.”

The aim is to develop a single common standard relevant across products and business sectors, using the feedback from partners.  Publication of the specification is expected in July 2008. This will be relevant for anyone wanting to look at their carbon footprint. 

The generic calculation will need to be customised for different industries. “A project is being lead by the wine industries of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and California”, said Amy Russell, National Natural Resource Management Coordinator at the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia. And FIVS, the International Federation of Wines and Spirits, have been briefed, she says “as they may choose to adopt the ‘carbon footprint’ protocol and methodology and expose it to a wider industry audience”.

FIVS head of secretariat, Bennett Caplan said: “The [wine industry] protocol will determine what emissions sources and sinks should be included in the calculation of the carbon footprint of wine production.” A calculation tool was expected to be completed at the end of 2007.   It is planned that this global methodology will be consistent with the PAS 2050, and it is being designed to be relevant to small, medium and large businesses. Provisor, an Australian consultancy company has been awarded the contract to produce the work.

Fundamental to carbon footprints are what to include and exclude, where the carbon trail starts and stops. Caplan said: “Key issues will be the inclusion/exclusion of emissions arising from transport to market, the Kyoto assumption of sequestration in the vineyard directly offsetting emissions from fermentation, and the actual availability of hard data that can be used in calculating a carbon footprint.”

Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and sustainability

A life cycle assessment most commonly covers all ‘environmental impacts’ through the lifecycle of a product, from raw material production, the manufacturing process, through the ‘in-use’ phase (e.g. driving a car, or consuming groceries) and disposal. As well as greenhouse gases, this assessment could also cover such things as the use of water, emission of toxic wastes and gases, and packaging waste.  

Peter Clark, operational and technical affairs manager at the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) says “a carbon footprint could be an element of the wider sustainability picture. Carbon footprints relate to one part of measuring sustainability.  LCAs look at a whole range of other environmental impacts.”

The SWA is working with its members to develop an industry environmental sustainability strategy, but in the meantime they have been part of a voluntary climate change agreement covering distilling operations, which focus on the production element of a life cycle. The 67 distilleries involved, which include gin and vodka distilleries, have improved efficiencies and invested in new, greener technologies, such as recycling excess distillery energy to heat local homes and facilities. Clark said: “Since the agreement started in 2001, production is 4% higher and we have achieved a 10% reduction in CO2  emissions.”

Putting their full weight behind the sustainability route, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has committed its members, who represent around 70% of the UK food and drink manufacturing industry, to a five-fold environmental plan, which includes sending zero food and packaging waste to landfill by 2015 and reducing water use by 20% by 2020, compared to 2007.

An FDF spokesperson said: “Our ambition is to make a real difference to the environment by focusing on those areas where we can have maximum impact.  CO2 reduction is the most important aspect but not the only one.  Indeed, the food and drink manufacturing sector has reduced its CO2 emissions by just over 15% between 1990 and 2005.  FDF’s aspiration for a 30% reduction by 2020 would mean our members saving 1½ million tonnes of CO2 compared to 1990, the same as taking 350,000 cars off the road.”

Eliminating food miles

Whilst consumers in the UK have taken ‘food miles’ to their hearts as an ostensibly easy-to-understand concept, the reality is that food miles as a single indicator of sustainability has been discredited.

We know that efficient long miles can produce less carbon than inefficient short miles. Caplan said; “Studies have shown that long distance sea freight, a common mode of wine transport, produces fewer emissions compared to short-haul road and air freight. ”

And so to labelling …

As one climate change consultant said: “you have to be very careful comparing one carbon footprint with another – you must be clear what has been included and what has been ignored.”

Whether it’s carbon footprints, LCAs, or sustainability indices, there are numerous difficulties to translate these complex equations to something that’s understood by, and useful for, consumers.  

The Carbon Trust’s ‘carbon reduction label’ is being trialled with the project’s partners.  It communicates a commitment to reduce carbon emissions. Used in conjunction with the carbon footprint logo and emissions figure, consumers would be able to track a lowering figure of the brands they buy.

The Trust’s spokesperson said: “The carbon reduction label includes emissions from source to arrival at the store and also includes product disposal. The emissions in the use of the product are not included, as these are highly variable depending on the user of the product. For example the carbon emitted when shampoo is used varies according to how hot or cold a person’s shower is.”

Labelling so far largely occurs at the point of production, but, said Russell: “how wine distribution, sale, consumption, disposal, collection and recycling are dealt with will be interesting. All these are out of the control of the producer and are subject to gross generalizations.”

Additionally, she said: “A carbon footprint is not static, and will change with seasonal variations, transport modes, packaging and product use/disposal/recycling. Measuring the footprint is therefore not a one-off exercise, and constantly updating or changing labels can be expensive.”

Conclusion

It’s early days and things are fast-moving. The PAS 2050 will be emerging at the time of publication, as will Provisor’s carbon calculation for the wine industry. Communicating consistently with consumers exactly what climate change measures are being undertaking by businesses and products will become increasingly important. And, given the speed of progress, not-very-much-time-at-all will tell whether carbon footprints are one giant leap for mankind, or one large, purposeful stride of a longer walk towards full-scale environmental impact accountability.

In a trade that is heavily reliant on natural resources to provide non-essential products, the wine industry needs to ensure it has appropriate sustainability credentials. 

Initiatives exist, but they vary in content and extent: just the vineyard or the winery too?  What sort of ethical element? Voluntary self-scoring systems or third party certified? Inbuilt annual improvements to measure progress? Tiered systems to distinguish beginners from long-time walkers? Communication to consumers?

FIVS, an international alcohol beverage trade body, has drawn up Global Wine Sector Environmental Sustainability Principles (GWSESP), under which four new world countries have sustainability  schemes:

The New World

Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ) started in the vineyard in 1997, with a winery module launched in 2002, and has recently announced intentions to remove the voluntary component for participants in industry events.  Philip Manson, science and innovations manager at New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW) said: “our goal is [to be] 100% accredited under independently audited schemes including SWNZ, biodynamics, organics and ISO 14000.” 

The SWNZ is a tiered system, and, Manson said “the only tier of participation where the member can make any claims regarding their sustainability status is tier three.” He added: “over the years there have been a range of changes to the practices, including restriction or removal of some agrochemicals, and inclusion of new practices e.g. encouraging use of biological control for pests and diseases.”

South Africa’s voluntary, certified Integrated Production of Wine (IPW) has also been running for a decade. Ethical aspects are covered under WIETA (Wine Industry Ethical Trade Association) which is both compulsory and independently certified. And IPW contains biodiversity guidelines.

Su Birch, CEO of Wines of South Africa said the industry is both raising the bar for IPW membership, and planning to make it compulsory.  She said: “I will know soon whether we will do this by the 2010 vintage. When it happens we will change the ‘bus ticket’ and promote to consumers, so they know we have genuine programmes that stand up to the most rigorous scrutiny.”

Over in California, Allison Jordan, executive director of the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance said “we launched the Sustainable Winegrowing Programme (SWP) in 2002 as an educational programme with a comprehensive self-assessment work book”, now running to 490 pages. She added: “It will become certified. We’ll launch with a pilot phase in 2009, but at this point we’re not going to have a tiered approach.” It will also remain voluntary.  

The Australian Wine Environmental Stewardship program “requires wineries and vineyards to adhere to an environmental standard requiring documentation of environmental action plans and improvement targets. Producers are to be audited against the standard on a regular basis” said Amy Russell, natural resources director at the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia.

Europe

In Europe, winemakers are adopting agriculture-wide programmes such as the certified Agriculture Raisonnée in France, and LEAF (Linking Environment and Farm) in the UK. Yvon Mau in Bordeaux is the first, and so far only, wine company accredited by LEAF, with three certified Bordeaux estates, plus another 12 Agriculture Raisonnée accredited. See box.

Organic/biodynamic

Organic and biodynamic viticulture predate the path to sustainability, and, along with carbon footprints, are seen by some as ’single issue campaigns’ or campaigns that (could) form part of a wider sustainability model, though some advocates already incorporate wider sustainability issues into their production models.

Domaine Zind-Humbrecht, for example, is “installing 400m² of solar panelling that would compensate for the electricity used on the winery and a few houses. All organic waste is recycled on the estate compost, and this is general practice in biodynamics” according to Olivier Humbrecht MW, who added “I know estates that have their own recycling used water unit to re-introduce clean water in the soil.” And though all organic standards are not the same, the Soil Association’s standards have guidelines for energy management and water use, which will become fully enforced in 2012.

Where organics/biodynamics ban the use of agrochemicals, sustainability models advocate their ‘responsible use’.  But copper is cited as an issue for organics/biodynamics, and can be in mild, damp regions where mildew risk is high, such as Bordeaux, where accumulation over decades may yet be an unresolved issue. The damp, cool 2008 vintage was a case in point for Bordeaux organics, but in sunny, dry California, co-owner of Parducci, Paul Dolan said “maybe copper was used in the vineyard one time in 10 years.”

Humbrecht added “we average 1.5kg/ha/year copper. [EU maximum permitted is 6kg/ha/year]. Experiments amongst biodynamists show if we use less than 2kg/ha/year of copper, a soil that’s alive with organic matter and micro-organisms can metabolise this small amount of copper. This lowers copper levels in the soil while still using small amounts.”   

Carbon Footprints

Greenhouse gas emissions have become a key target across industry sectors, yet remain just one component of sustainable development. Russell said: “greenhouse gases are one waste product to be considered when looking at overall environmental sustainability.”  adding: “the Australian industry has made completion of the carbon footprint calculator a requirement of our scheme”.  Birch and Manson said South Africa and NZ were looking to incorporate a carbon calculator into their schemes.

The arguments against certification?

No one NEEDS to be certified to practice any type of sustainable or organic/biodynamic viticulture, but communication becomes problematic, and potentially, misleading. How many producers claim to be working to ‘organic or biodynamic principles’? How many producers claim the non-measured or validated ‘lutte raisonnée’, which popularly translates as any form of agriculture not following the traditional/conventional systematic use of agrochemicals, according to calendar not need?

Apart from cynical marketing opportunities, and outside of any state or national system, some producers have long been travelling the sustainability path.  Dolan “started down the organic grape growing path 20 years ago. The triple bottom line is the mantra for economically, environmentally and ethically viable sustainability, and we want to make sure we’re operating is such a way as being responsible for our own actions.”  He added: “we’re trying to lead the process so others can see what is possible. Our biggest challenge is compost. We supplement compost with some organic cow manure from outside. That’s pretty much all we bring from the outside. It’s taken us 12 years to get where we are.”  No one argues that the sustainable path is a long one.

In Burgundy, Christophe Chauvel, chief viticulturalist at Albert Bichot said ‘culture raisonnée is a philosophy, an approach, and certification will not add anything to vineyard balance. We try to make the vine work by itself. A huge part of this is observation and common sense, and knowing the diseases. We have tools – the meteo stations, sprays, friendly spiders. The aim is to bring the plant back into balance.”

Conclusion

All these initiatives are work in progress, with a need to measure improvements each year as evidence of progress. Certification may become increasingly important as communication with customers becomes more common, as well as to measure and verify improvements. As Dolan said: “sustainability is a process. It’s only possible to become more sustainable.”

FIVS GWSESP areas of environment risk assessment:

• 1. Site selection for new vineyards and wineries
• 2. Grape variety selection for new vineyards
• 3. Soil condition
• 4. Water use efficiency
• 5. Waste water
• 6. Human resources management
• 7. Biodiversity
• 8. Solid waste
• 9. Energy use
• 10. Air quality
• 11. Neighbouring land use
• 12. Agrochemical use

Agriculture raisonée versus ‘traditional’: The Yvon Mau case study

Château Lavison in the Entre-Deux-Mers reduced copper treatments by up to 50%; made no anti-botryits treatments in 2007 versus 2 in 1999; reduced use of weed-killer by 40%; recycled 98% of packaging waste by:

• a) pruning to spread out grape bunches,
• b) increasing air circulation in the canopy
• c) reducing the width of the weeded area under each row
• d) using no herbicide between Aug 1 and March 30
• e) sorting all waste and using local recycling facilities

You can barely take a breath these days without someone trying to measure the carbon footprint of your exhalation and suggest ways to reduce it.

For a business looking to engage in the carbon debate it is all to easy to be swamped at the very first hurdle.  The plethora of information, of government initiatives, of voluntary agreements, of industry commitments, not to mention the different ways of measuring greenhouse gases, and so on, is becoming staggering.   

Transport and distribution

Though consumers have latched onto ‘food miles’, this concept has been discredited as any sort of useful indicator of sustainability or carbon use.  It’s well established that efficient long-haul transport may well create lower carbon emissions than inefficient nationwide haulage.

But it’s true to say that companies making efficiency savings in their distribution network, will by default, be lowering their carbon emissions.  Transport is a very clear focus of attention for carbon reduction opportunities.

Supply chain consulting company Scala have undertaken some workshops with 40 food and drinks industry companies specifically on this issue. In conjunction with the Department for Transport, they are gathering data on five key transport operations indicators: vehicle fill, vehicle utilisation (hours per day), empty running, fuel consumption and delays. Their managing director, John Perry, said “there have been few practical steps taken to improve environmental standards in the supply chain” and the companies involved will be testing various models to measure efficiency indicators, with the aim of creating a standard for measuring the environmental impact of supply chain distribution.  This will have a measurable impact on all areas of the retail and foodservice distribution network.

3663, who are new entrants in the 2007 Sunday Times top 20 best big companies to work for, and who are committed to sustainability, have made significant efficiency savings on their refrigerated deliveries. A spokesperson said: “”When 3663, First for Foodservice, was looking for a more sustainable way to refrigerate deliveries it teamed up with Frigoblock refrigeration systems in a joint venture that saves more than 12,000 tonnes of CO2 per year .” All 1,127 of 3663’s lorries have these electrically-operated units.  In addition, more than two-thirds of their lorries use some proportion of biodiesel mix in their fuel.

Carbon footprints

One of the biggest challenges for carbon footprints is there are several methods used to calculate them. Which means for the consumer they are simply not comparable, as it is difficult to know which inputs have been considered and which ignored. Defra is working with BSI Global and the Carbon Trust to develop a universal methodology and calculation for use across different industries’ products and services.  

A spokesperson for BSI Global said the specification, known as PAS 2050, “will consider all lifecycle stages along the supply chain of a product or service, i.e. from raw materials to end of life.  This includes transportation at every stage of the supply chain.”   

If this work is widely adopted one of its biggest advantages is that it is likely to become possible to compare the carbon footprints of different products and services. 

In the food and drinks industries, Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, the Co-operative Group, Mϋller Dairy, Scottish and Newcastle and Tesco are all part of the second phase of partner companies working towards the publication of the specification in July 2008.

Wider sustainability

Calculating greenhouse gas emissions – the carbon footprint – is an vital element in the cause of wider sustainability.  Where the methodology dictates, carbon footprints potentially calculate the carbon emissions from every stage in a product’s lifecycle.  Sustainability adds into the equation other issues such as water use, packaging waste, and the impacts of transport – air quality, noise, congestion etc.

According to Defra, the food and drinks industries use 14% of the energy consumed by UK businesses, and accounts for one quarter of all HGV (heavy goods vehicles) vehicle kilometres in the UK. Government’s food industry sustainability strategy (FISS), has targeted the industry, setting objectives on water use, waste management and sustainable sourcing, across the supply chain from manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and the catering sector.  

Dr. Andrew Dunn, of FISS, said it “is a voluntary framework for sustainability in food industry. It has set indicative targets for action, and challenges for the industry. We need innovation to achieve step changes to take forward the sustainability agenda.”

WRAP, the Waste and Resource Action Programme, for example, estimate that food manufacturing (excluding agriculture and horticulture) and foodservice account for more than one-third of total food waste in the UK., which is almost as much as household waste.

WRAP have been working with the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) to identify the best way for the food industry to meet the challenges laid down in FISS.  To this end, a step change in the wider sustainability debate occurred when the FDF recently announced a five-fold environmental ambition on sustainability.  This commits its members, who account for 70% of the food and drinks manufacturing industry to measurable sustainability goals. Up to this point each member has been ploughing its own carbon-reduction furrow.

Their spokesperson said: “Our five-fold ambition is about changing behaviour and delivering collective improvements in environmental performance by FDF members in areas where they make a real difference.  For water use that could be on food manufacturing sites.  However, for food transport, it could be by demanding improvements from third party hauliers who distribute our products.”

On the waste front, FDF has committed its members to send zero food and packaging waste to landfill from 2015.

On energy use, the FDF has committed its members to the FISS target of 20% reduction in emissions between by 2010 compared to 1990, and tasked them to go further to a 30% reduction from the 1990 baseline.    Tate and Lyle, for example, is building a new biomass boiler, which, their spokesperson said, “will reduce Tate & Lyle’s UK cane sugar refinery’s carbon footprint by 30%.”

So, for anyone looking to get involved for the first time examining energy use is a good start point. Use less energy or friendlier energy.  And, said Dr. Dunn “if you behave more sustainably in other areas for example, by conserving water, or reducing waste, you are at the same time, even though it wasn’t your primary goal, saving on energy.” These days, less really is more.