Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR) has issued a second round of sustainability standards benchmarking.
The benchmarking aims to compare the sustainability certification schemes across the global wine industry – of which there are over 40 – to develop a Global Reference Framework (GRF).
This second round of benchmarking builds on the Pilot Report released last year and is led by Delaney Sheridan, operations manager, and Dr. Peter Stanbury, research director.
In this round of evaluation, the SWR reviewed eight standards from across the world, aiming to cover a wide range of geographies.
It focused on EU Organic, which is a global standard; Wines of Alentejo Sustainability Programme from Portugal; Fair Choice from Germany; Terra Vitis from France; Napa Green from the USA; Sustainability Code of the Chilean Wine Industry from Chile; Demeter, which is global; and the Argentinian Wine Sustainability Self-Assessment Guide COVIAR from Argentina.
The SWR noted that the benchmarking – laid out in a report – was the first time it had evaluated standards not specific to wine or a particular region, with both the EU Organic and Demeter intended to be applicable globally.
Externally sourced grapes
Throughout the process, several key findings emerged, including the issue of externally sourced grapes.
The SWR noted that at present the GRF does not address how to account for grapes purchased from external sources, especially when a winemaker sources grapes from non-certified growers.
Currently, some standards bodies are explicit about the maximum proportion of non-certified source grapes allowed in a wine, while others provide less detail on the permissible level. This is something the SWR said needs to be remedied in the GRF.
Smaller producers
The next issue – one that is a recurring theme in sustainability standards – is how to include smaller companies when the financial and time burdens of becoming certified are often high.
Between the eight standards bodies, multiple ways to address these challenges emerged, including fee management, tiered requirements, a lower bar for certification and clarity around the trajectory of performance. The SWR reviewed these ideas.
Other issues
As part of the benchmarking, the SWR also continued its investigation into how standards are addressing labour issues, which it notes are less well covered than environmental issues. It found that there was a lack of awareness.
Likewise, the SWR found that issues like packaging and logistics are still underrepresented in sustainability standards. That said, there is a growing recognition among standards bodies that this area needs to be improved.
As with the Pilot Report, the secondary report continued to grapple with the need for clear, robust boundaries balanced with enough flexibility to not deter certification.
Sheridan pressed the importance of not deterring certification, especially among small companies: “In a fragmented industry like wine, because small producers make up quite a large part of the supply chain, it’s a really critical issue to address. If sustainability is going to work at scale within the industry, smaller players also really need to be a part of it.”
