Troon Vineyard Achieves ROC Gold Level Certification
Clorox steps into refillables, Diam outlines sustainability plans
Major CPG brand like Clorox are stepping into the refillable business model, with some pushback from anti-plastic advocacy groups and challenging consumer demand. Diam outlines plans and progress towards sustainability, including being 100% energy independent in two years. The Wall Street Journal looks at the corporate boardroom and the C-Suite and reports on how they are both being impacted by upcoming regulation from both the EU and the US. Oregon’s Troon Vineyard is the second vineyard in the world to receive the Regenerative Organic Alliance’s Regenerative Organic Certified Gold designation. While Jancis Robinson recounts the benefits of farming regeneratively.
Packaging
Global: At a recent event Diam outlined its sustainability goals and progress towards them. Wine Business
Since 2020, the Spanish site at San Vicente de Alcantara has been using green electricity sourced off site from renewable energy sources backed by Guarantee of Origin certificates.
Their goal is to be completely energy independent in two years. 40 acres of solar panels will be installed in Spain as part of this initiative.
They are also restructuring operations to shift most of their still wine cork production to the Spanish facility, steer still and sparkling wine cork production to their French facility; and produce spirit corks exclusively at their Portugal plants.
The company is targeting a 55% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2025. There’s been a 33% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions per cork since 2010, according to Diam.
US: An interesting piece on how major CPG brands like Clorox and Windex are rolling out concentrates meant to be mixed with water and placed in refillable pavkaging. The New York Times
A refillable/reuse model is the gold standard of reducing packaging waste, carbon emissions and costs.
Clorox’s product has been in the works since 2019, when they pledged to halve virgin plastic and fiber packaging by 2030.
Jodi Russell, the vice president of research and development for Clorox’s cleaning division, noted refillables account for just 5% of all trigger-spray sales, but she is eager to see that figure grow.
Pushback from Jan Dell, a chemical engineer and founder of the anti-plastic pollution organization The Last Beach Cleanup, noted that many cleaning products are housed in PET or HDPE, two types of plastic with relatively high recycling rates. She is less concerned about them — and far more concerned about the packaging of other products like the ones noted below.
Alexis Limberakis, senior director of sustainability at The Clorox Company, noted that Hidden Valley Ranch bottles, which make up the majority of that brand’s packaging, are made from PET or HDPE, and that the dipping cups “represent a small portion” of Clorox’s portfolio.
The piece also delves into smaller companies in the space like Grove, a company selling refillable household cleaners with a concentrated tab; and the challenges winning over consumers to this model.
Corporate Leadership
US: The Wall Street Journal reports US boards are actively recruiting board appointees with sustainability experience; and how the CSO role is evolving.
Among Fortune 500 companies, 25% of board appointees in 2022 had previous experience on sustainability committees, up from 14% in 2021, according to executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles International Inc.
The efforts in U.S. boardrooms come as companies are bracing for mandatory climate reporting rules in the U.S. and European Union, which would require publicly traded corporations to disclose their greenhouse-gas emissions. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will likely release its final rules in April.
Large listed companies could be required to start reporting emissions data and other climate disclosures as early as January 2025.
While another WSJ piece spotlights the Chief Sustainability Officer’s (CSO) role and how it has grown and changed overtime. CSO’s have historically been technical experts focused on helping companies decode their carbon footprint. Today’s CSOs are business-transformation specialists who run point for companies in their sustainability efforts, supported by a team of experts.
“As we see businesses trying to integrate sustainability, we’re seeing the role open up more to people who are strategic, people who are transformers, change agents, disrupters, versus perhaps the subject matter experts that were running it before,” said Rachael De Renzy Channer, global head of sustainability at executive recruiter Egon Zehnder.
Last year a record number of U.S. businesses recruited their first ever CSO, according to a survey by recruitment group Weinreb. What’s more, all but one of the CSOs of the nearly 100 publicly listed U.S. companies that responded to the Weinreb survey said they engage with the board of directors, and around three-quarters of the respondents sit on the leadership team, up from less than half in 2011.
Viticulture
US: Modern Farmer looks at how own-rooted grapevines particularly in the sandy soils of Santa Ynez Valley, can be a more sustainable option due to their drought-tolerance, more predictable yields and economic savings.
The downside is of course phylloxera risk. Chris Greer, PhD, a University of California integrated pest management advisor, points to a 1928 USDA study. “It’s almost 100 years old,” he says, “but it’s a pretty extensive study on phylloxera infestation in California as related to types of soils. It’s pretty much saying the same thing that most people are saying today … In sandier soils, it’s less of a problem.”
There are many contributing factors, such as location, geography of the vineyard, micro-climate and soil composition, but own-rooted vines in Santa Ynez County do tend to thrive, especially over the droughts and extreme heat waves in the last few years.
“They react better to drought. They react better to heat stress. They react better to basically all the problems that we’re seeing now,” says Blair Fox, owner and winemaker of Blair Fox Cellars.
“The primary benefit for me is that it makes us self-reliant in many ways,” says Max Marshak of Refugio Ranch Vineyards and Roblar Winery. “The cost benefit to being able to propagate your own vines from cuttings is fantastic.” Vine density varies by grower, but Marshak is planting more than 2,000 vines per acre—grafted stock would cost the winery about $10,000 per acre in plants alone. Across Refugio’s 27 acres, that’s a substantial investment.
US: John Deere expands its electric fleet, unveiling plans to deliver 20-plus electric and hybrid-electric models across John Deere and the Wirtgen Group by 2026. SAE International
John Deere revealed its first electric excavator, the 145 X-Tier, at CES 2023. Targeting excavators because they are the “most heavily used machine form on the jobsite,” Deere said the 145 X-Tier is powered by batteries from Kreisel Electric, in which Deere acquired a majority stake in early 2022.
Kreisel specializes in immersion-cooled battery modules that enable a “uniquely low” temperature spread of <1° throughout the module, resulting in a longer lifetime of up to 20%, the company claims.
Kreisel also developed a high-power charging technology called CHIMERO that is “battery-buffered” – i.e., the integrated battery supplements the available grid connection to mitigate load peaks, and its own battery is recharged while charging a vehicle.
The commercial platform with CCS Combo-2 connectors is said to enable up to 180-kW charging power with a “typically available” 60-kW grid connection and reportedly costs about 50% less than typical EV fast chargers.
Spain: In an interview with The Drinks Business Almudena Alberca MW, the technical director of Spanish wine group Entrecanales Domecq e Hijos, makes the case for why Spain is a leading organic fine wine producer.
“Spain already has more hectares of organic vineyard than any other in the world – with 131,000 ha of certified organic vines in 2020 – as many Spanish areas have climates that lend themselves to this way of working. We often have low disease pressure due to scarce rainfall and naturally low yields” she notes.
She points to Ribera del Duero as being particularly impacted by rising temperatures, as it already had a very extreme climate and now the peaks are even more extreme. Last summer there were few days when the heat was a tolerable level.
There is an argument to be made that to preserve the future of fine wines from Ribera, more producers should be looking at going organic. She believes certification is a key investment, otherwise there is no guarantee to the consumer.
Global: Jancis Robinson recounts the benefits of regenerative farming and notes some of the founding wineries in this movement. JancisRobinson.com
On a recent trip to New Zealand she was handed two glasses filled with soil; the contents of the one farmed conventionally looked and smelled like dust. The other farmed biodynamically held a complex array of aromas that seemed as full of life as the earth inside the glass appeared to be, full of fragments of vine roots and tiny insects.
Both biodynamic and organic farming allow copper-based treatments; which can be toxic, however, and there is concern about the build-up of copper in vineyard soils.
Regenerative farming is squarely focused on the soil, its primary aim is to regenerate the soil by increasing the life within it now that we understand more fully the importance of underground networks of microbes and mycorrhizal fungi in promoting healthy growth.
Spain’s RVA (Regenerative Viticulture Alliance), has been developing an international protocol with associated certification. The idea is that under the auspices of Ecocert, the well-established international organic certifying body, individual soils will be audited every three years.
The American ROC certification (Regenerative Organic Certification™), launched in 2020, is more demanding because it’s even more wide-ranging, and requires a commitment to organic farming. It also requires integrating animal welfare and livestock operations, where appropriate (it can be applied to a wide variety of products – not just wine), as well as the social aspects of sustainability (looking after the workforce).
Marketing
Applegate Valley, Oregon: Oregon’s Troon Vineyard is the second vineyard in the world — and fourth farm overall — to receive the Regenerative Organic Alliance’s Regenerative Organic Certified Gold designation. Press Release via Wine Business
Per the press release it will also be the first winery to release wines with the Regenerative Organic Certified Gold label on it.
It achieved the Silver Level in 2021; in February of this year Troon became the world’s first farm to receive the Equitable Food Initiative’s ERGO Certification, which is designed to ensure fair and safe conditions for workers on smaller farms.
The certification showed significant progress on the worker rights leg of the Regenerative OrganicCertified stool and resulted in the elevation to the Gold level.
UK: The Women in Wine Expo, founded by Senay Ozdemir is headed to the UK in May. The Buyer
The idea is to inspire, connect and support women in an educational and fun setting. The focus is to bring women in wine together from lesser known wine regions and get them to discover or re-discover these regions.
The 3-day event will be held May 10-13.
Climate Change
US: A recent webinar titled “Climate Change Implications for Grapevine Production,” was held by the Eastern Viticulture and Enology Forums organized by researchers at Cornell University, Penn State University and Virginia Tech. Wine Business
The panel conducting the Climate Change webinar included Dr. Cain Hickey, viticulture extension educator at Penn State; Jennifer Phillips-Russo, viticultural extension specialist for Cornell’s Lake Erie Region Grape Program; Hans Walter-Peterson, viticulture extension specialist for Cornell’s Finger Lakes Grape Program; and Alice Wise, Cornell’s grape extension specialist on Long Island.
The featured speaker was Greg Jones, the well-regarded Oregon-based climatologist and wine owner. He noted these specific risks:
Individual weather events, often short-term and localized, have a potential crop risk
Climate variability that is more seasonal and regionalized, affects production and quality variability
Climate structure and climate changes can affect the long-term suitability, both regionally and globally, of growing crops.
For vineyards, weather and climate influence vine growth, productivity, and quality of grapes for the entire year
End of harvest: slow hardening of vines, sufficient chilling units, low impact from extreme temperatures in winter
Bud break: combined effects of soil temperature, atmospheric temperature, and day length changes
Flowering: optimum daytime maximum temperatures, high solar potential, low cloud cover and rainfall
Véraison: optimum heat accumulation, low temperature variability, low heat stress
Harvest: high diurnal temperature range, truncation of season, daylength changes, low rainfall
The webinar also specifically spotlighted climatic changes across the East Coast over the past twenty years.
This series of virtual events is offered at no charge to participants, but pre-registration is required.
Carbon Emissions
Their overall footprint for 2021 was 16,488 tons CO2e, with 60% coming from the production and packaging of wine (bottles and boxes).
As with many in the drinks trade, the figures unearthed by the Society’s review are telling of the challenges involved, in that Scope 1 and 2 emissions account for just 6.6% of the overall carbon footprint, with 93.4% coming from Scope 3 activities, effectively beyond the immediate footprint of operating the UK offices and warehouse.
To help achieve these goals, The Wine Society is to launch a program of ‘insetting’ in 2024, eschewing payments into offsetting schemes to instead invest the equivalent funds into producer-focused projects that will “capture and store carbon, reduce emissions and enhance biodiversity”.