
Ep. 1097 Future of sustainability reporting to retailers and financial markets | wine2wine Business Forum 2021
wine2wine Business Forum 2021
Episode Summary
Content Analysis Key Themes and Main Ideas 1. The Evolution and Challenges of Wine Sustainability: Discussion on the increasing importance of sustainability in the wine industry, the complexities of numerous certifications, and the need for standardized, science-based metrics. 2. The Role of the Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR): Exploration of the SWR as a non-profit initiative aiming to unify global sustainability efforts, streamline reporting, and foster collaboration across the entire wine supply chain. 3. Financial and Operational Aspects of Sustainability: Analysis of how sustainability initiatives can lead to financial benefits (e.g., cost savings from water/energy efficiency) and the challenge of balancing environmental goals with economic realities, particularly for smaller wineries. 4. Packaging's Environmental Impact and Consumer Perception: A deep dive into the significant carbon footprint of wine packaging, especially glass bottles, and the tension between perceived luxury (heavy bottles) and environmental responsibility (lightweight alternatives). 5. The Importance of Collaboration and Education: Emphasis on the necessity of collaboration among producers, retailers, academics, and consumers to share knowledge, conduct research, and combat ""greenwashing"" through transparent, measurable data. Summary This episode of the Italian Wine Podcast features Erica Loving, Chief Sustainability Officer at Vintage Wine Estates, and Laura Catena, Managing Director of Bodega Catena Zapata and founder of the Catena Institute of Wine. They delve into the multifaceted topic of sustainability within the global wine industry. The speakers highlight the burgeoning focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors, driven by both industry leaders and financial markets. A central theme is the newly launched Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR), an initiative aiming to standardize sustainability metrics and foster collaboration across the wine value chain, from viticulture to retail. The conversation touches upon the current landscape of numerous, often complex, sustainability certifications, which create confusion for both producers and consumers. Erica and Laura discuss how sustainability efforts, such as water and energy efficiency, can also translate into financial savings for wineries. However, they acknowledge the significant challenge of large initial investments for sustainable practices, especially for smaller producers. A key point of discussion is the environmental impact of wine packaging, with glass bottles contributing a substantial portion of a wine's carbon footprint. They explore the dilemma of heavy ""luxury"" bottles versus more eco-friendly lightweight options and the challenge of shifting consumer perception. Both speakers passionately advocate for science-based metrics, transparency, and widespread collaboration—not just among competitors but also with academic institutions—to effectively address climate change and other sustainability challenges. They emphasize the need for clear communication to consumers to combat ""greenwashing"" and encourage informed purchasing decisions. Takeaways * The wine industry faces a critical need for standardized, science-based sustainability metrics due to complex and varied global certifications. * The Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR) is a new initiative designed to streamline sustainability reporting and foster industry-wide collaboration. * Sustainability efforts often lead to financial savings through improved resource efficiency, benefiting a company's bottom line. * Wine packaging, particularly glass bottles, represents a significant portion (up to 90% in some cases) of a wine's total carbon footprint. * Consumer perception of quality is often linked to the weight of a wine bottle, posing a challenge for adopting more lightweight, sustainable packaging. * Collaboration between wineries, retailers, academics, and governments is crucial for research, knowledge sharing, and implementing effective sustainability solutions. * The industry needs to move beyond ""greenwashing"" and storytelling to provide measurable, quantifiable data on sustainability efforts. * The wine industry is a ""canary in the coal mine"" for climate change, making immediate and collective action vital. * Governments have a role in incentivizing sustainable practices, though industry-led standards are becoming increasingly important. Notable Quotes * ""ESG is basically what the financial markets are calling sustainability."
About This Episode
The Italian wine podcast discusses the upcoming edition of the wine to wine business forum, which focuses on sustainability and communication for the wine industry. The nonprofit Vintage wine streams is working on creating a sustainability code for the wine industry, and they are expanding internationally. The speakers emphasize the need for education and transparency in the industry to connect consumers with the desired changes, and the importance of measuring progress towards sustainability goals. They also discuss the importance of global industry alignment and a focus on science-based metrics to streamline the process. The speakers emphasize the need for education and sharing experiences to improve the sustainability of wine, and emphasize the importance of measuring progress towards their goal of sustainability.
Transcript
Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode has been brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth of twenty twenty two in Verona Italy. This year will be an exclusively in person edition. The main theme of the event will be all around wine communication. Tickets are on sale now. So for more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Italian wine podcast, a wine to wine business forum twenty twenty one media partner, is proud to present a series of sessions highlighting the key themes and ideas from the two day event held on October the eighteenth and nineteenth twenty twenty one. This hybrid edition of the business forum was jam packed with the most informed speakers discussing some of the hottest topics in the wine industry today. For more information, please visit wine to wine dot net and tune in every Thursday at two pm central European time for more episodes recorded during this latest edition of wine to wine business forum. Or, I guess it's afternoon in in, Italy by now, but we are both in California early morning. So we will be talking about, the changes in in sustainability reporting and communication and and the future needs of sustainability for the wine industry in this talk. And, my name is Erica Erica loving. I'm the chief sustainability officer of vintage wine estates. In California. I have presented a wine to wine before as a Swedish wine journalist, specialized in sustainability, but now I moved over here, and I'm working on the operative side. Vintage wine estates is a publicly listed company. We're on NASDAQ, under the particular b BWE, and we've been only listed for six months. We have about fourteen wineries and fifty around fifty brands. Changes changes a little. And I'm the first sustainability officer for the company. So my job is reporting sustainability to their financial markets, reporting sustainability to our board and the corporate side, but also, the strategy of sustainability for the company overall the certifications, the technology implementation and and so on. And Laraa almost needs no introduction, but I will let you introduce yourself. Oh, hello. Hello, everybody. Chow. So, I am Laura Katina, managing director of volero Gatinas Apata in Mendoza Quintina, and also the founder of the Katena Institute of Wine. And it's very exciting to be here, with presenting with Erica because, you know, sustainability is something very, very dear, to me, it's you know, the scenic one on of the future. And, at Cadena, about fifteen years ago, we realized that there was no sustainability code for Argentina. And we actually went out, to study all the sustainability codes from around Europe, United States, Australia, Chile, Chile, and we came up with a code that, we later realized we're the only ones using this code. What's the use of that? And We actually worked with some, other wineries in Argentina and an organization of, wineries, Bodega, Argentina, to create a code that can be used by all. And today is being used by, hundreds of wineries in Argentina. So it's fantastic to be here today. And I know one of the things that we've been asked to talk about is the sustainability round table, which is a group of wineries, retailers, you know, there's, you know, monopolies, from Sweden is on it. So you go from producer, and they want, and they have small and large producers, organic, not organic producers, big retailers, small retailers, buyers, for us to get together and figure out a way, to create a a international applicable sustainability code. And and this is a very exciting group that both Erica and I are part of. And, but the problem is that the task is so big. I wonder if we will accomplish it, Erica. Do you want to make some comments about why you have joined the group and and what you think they can do? Yeah. It's I was very excited that this group was was founded. It's a non profit out of the UK, sustainable wine roundtable, or, swR. It's a short, and Vintage joined it as a founding member just like Katena, did, and it's about fifty fifty founding members. We launched or the the roundtable launched publicly about a month ago and will be open to, general membership from from twenty twenty two. But I've worked with, with, evaluating certifications for the Swedish monopoly for sustainable Agates before. And the complexity of of all these programs, I mean, I I love that you have the Argentine Time program There are some great programs around the world. There are some slightly weaker programs, as well. But the problem is for the consumer. I mean, both for the consumer and sometimes for for the group, we are I said we are, fourteen wine race. We are we have wine race that are live certified, SIP certified, California, sustainable, wine growers alliance certified. And then, you know, there's an organic vineyard here and there. There's there's all these programs. We have Napa Green, fish friendly farming. It just it becomes too complex. It becomes too complex for us. And even me as a expert on on sustainability in wine and with, you know, extra depth on, certifications. If you woke me up in the middle of the night and said, which one's better at water? Which one's better at packaging? Which one even includes packaging? I can't I couldn't tell you. It's and it becomes impossible almost for the buyers and the consumers to know which certifications are credible. Is this truly a sustainable wine that I'm that I'm buying? And I think we need to we need to streamline that. We need to to look at, you know, coffee, bananas, chocolate, palm oil, the other areas where where they've they've learned to develop an international code. It will it will improve things for the, for for the industry for for understanding and communication. And, I mean, I even I have to report according to other frameworks as well. We will be reporting to the financial markets according to, something called Saspi, and they will have other metrics than our our sustainability code. So I'm very excited about this, sustainable wine roundtable that we can get out of it. Yeah. And I think that what the good thing about this roundtable is that it has players from, you know, Viticulture winemaking to selling wine, buying wine, and there will be these task forces, these groups working on different topics. But you were just mentioning, that you have to report in on the business side, on the financial side. And, I want to tell a story, I about talking to financial people about sustainability. I was in in a conference that, was, done by Stanford University. I went to medical school there, and I was the only doctor, winemaker. Everybody else was on the business side. And when we were talking about make tricks. You know, I thought we were talking completely different, languages because they were talking about money and, you know, some number that means that you were more or less sustainable. And then when I started talking about, well, what are we doing about the glacier water? How are we storing water so that we have more water because there's less water? How are we taking the p care of the people in the countryside who are leaving to the cities because they're looking for a different kind of life because of climate change? You know, what are we doing about biodiversity? And I was speaking about this and I realized that everybody else in the audience, and it was a group of maybe about twenty people who was speaking a different language. Everything I said, they don't mean something to them because it was not, you know, in a dollar number. And and I hope that the sustainability roundtable will look into, you know, how do we and the financial people speak the same language? Because if you focus about sustainability as a way to make money, And and, yes, sustainable is being able to make some money because that's how you plug their parents and pay salaries. However, the goal of, you know, preserving the planet and preserving these provisions of wine making has to be present at all moments. And and the other thing that to me is is is very difficult about this financial analysis of sustainability is that in different countries, you have different situations. So for example, you know, in Argentina, we don't have any incentives for solar or wind energy because and and actually there's a subsidy for, gasoline. So that's really inexpensive. So if I want to put solar panels, it's a huge investment and I have to decide Am I doing solar panels or am I building more houses for the people who live in the vineyards? Who have been working for a family for twenty years or, you know, or am I planting a vineyard in a new location because there's little water in this location. And You know, so I think that, you know, understanding, you know, the sort of the what's behind the money and and and and thinking of, you know, in in terms of saving the earth. And at the same time, really, you know, to think lower at local, you know, a person in Sweden needs to understand the person in Argentina, and a person in Argentina needs to understand the person in South Africa or in France. You know, how do we get to do this? I think Erica is very difficult I I agree that it's difficult. And I remember, actually, when when that Stanford event happened, to you. And you were kind of you were kind of, sad that they would turn sustainability, which is, you know, really about saving the earth and the people into financial metrics. And here I come from from the other side. I mean, that's that's how I got into sustainability, because my my father was an environmental activist and journalist, and it really has mattered to me. But the language that I found to communicate it when when I found ways to communicate to the financial markets, that that was that was really interesting to me. That I went, to a, an excellent, excellent class on ESG. So environmental social and governance. EsG is basically what the financial markets are calling sustainability or a CSR. That's the the new term. And I went to an ESG class, at Berkeley Law with a professor called Amelia. And it it was a very it was eye opening to me because it bridged this need for the financial markets to make a profit. With the needs we have as a society to to care for these big questions of carbon, water, climate change, and, and the social social justice. And for me, now I as I'm going through these processes, working through our company, looking for sustainability projects or sustainability improvements, a lot of them actually turn into financial improvements. If I If I find, technology that saves water, well, that also saves water cost and the cost of pumping water and and so on. And same if if I look for energy improvements, energy efficiencies, we we save, we save money from using less energy. So it's it does make for a more for a stronger company from a corporate standpoint. So I understand that, you know, you can invest you can be an investor and be interested in investing in a sustainable company from the, let's say, the goodness of your heart, if that's where you want your money placed. You you find this an important topic, or you could just not care and just want to look for really well around companies. And I would say that companies that work a lot with sustainability will be well well run because of this way of looking through profits. And what I have with time, what I have started feeling is that there's no problem in that. Because the end result is the same. So if if you're investing in in companies just for the profit, but it actually has the effect of, you know, better salaries for the employees better trainings for the employees, better, you know, more water saving or or a lower carbon footprint. I just I think that's great. But, you know, that that your your to me, you know, you're putting it all together. But there's many there's many instances where it's not so obvious that the that the thing to help sell help the climate is the one that makes you money. For sure there are some situations. Let's say you know, you turn off the lights in your house. That's good for your pocket and also good for the environment. Wonderful. Let's do it. So those are the perhaps the easy decisions that many people are not doing that. Yes. That must be done. However, some of these, undertakings on behalf of, climate change and helping the planet require very big investments that might not pay off for twenty, thirty years. So it's, you know, for for, you know, let's say a small family winery to make such an investment, you know, would be, you know, crazy because, you know, you could not just survive financially. And so I think that, yes, there are some things that, are clearly the right thing to do, and we need to all collaborate on doing it. I think there's other things that are more difficult. And one of the things that you and I spoke about is packaging. So, you know, There is this big move to move to to lighter, bottles. You know, we have this, bottle. It's it's under, four hundred grams for a wine that's natural wine, no sulfites, organic grapes, you know, it sells for around, you know, retail price of of twenty euros. You know, wonderful wine. But when you talk about the luxury segment, and we have wines in that segment, I want to show something that I that I was given and and don't be jealous. Look at this. So this is a cognac that comes in this fantastic box. I mean, if you get this box, like, you know, for me, I I I spent my money on wine, not on on clothes, story for the Italians there. I I like I like to to look at people initially. They look so good, but I'd like to spread my money on wine. And this is the box here that it comes in, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and then here you're open and you get this fantastic cognac, you know, very, very luxury, very, very heavy. And, you know, I I have I finished the cognac, but I'm still saving it and I show it to friends and I've derived a lot of pleasure from this box and this bottle. And Yep. So many special moments with people. They come to my house. I I give them this this cognac that is so phenomenal. And and I say, okay. So if I didn't have all this, the experience would be lesser. And, you know, what is the carbon footprint of this? It's quite high. But you know, is that the right thing to do for this producer? You know, I think that it's part of the experience. So so what are your thoughts on that, Erica? Are you enjoying this podcast? There's so much more high quality wine content available from mama jumbo shrimp. Check out our new wine study maps. Our books on Italian wine including Italian wine unplugged. The jumbo shrimp guide to Italian wine, Sanjay Vazzy Lambrusco, and other stories, and much much more. On our website, mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Now back to the show. I I think going back to a sustainable wine roundtable, one one thing that was quite prominent as a problem when I went through the global sustainability certifications is that a lot of them do not include packaging. And the glass bottle makes up about thirty percent thirty percent of a wines total carbon footprint. And I think the Swedish monopoly, just released a study that that showed that for them, for the Swedish market, the life cycle analysis of a wine bottle, the packaging and the transportation is together ninety percent. So only ten percent actually comes from the vineyard and winery, which is is not a lot. So we have to include packaging. If we're gonna work with science based metrics, we have to include the packaging. And one of the key things is then if we want to stay with glass bottles, and there are advantages to glass bottles, I think over, over alternative packaging such as Tetra PAC, bagging box, aluminum cans. All the all those have a lower carbon footprint, for sure. They might have other drawbacks, but If we say that we want to work with glass, we have to reduce the weight of the packaging. The problem is exactly what you're saying. The the luxury experience of a heavy bottle and the consumer's perception of quality connected to the bottle weight. But I really believe, the key thing is picking your picking your battles, picking your bottles here. If, I mean, jackson family wines is is the a winery group, most of you know it, It's they're out of California based out of California as well, and they work a lot with sustainability. And they took their two biggest brands, La Crema, and Jackson Family wines. They're huge brands in the US. And reduce the bottle weight, and they reduce it by three ounces per bottle on average, which is about oh, let's see here. Ours, the Americans worked in in a metric system, but It's less than a hundred gram change, per bottle, if I remember correctly. And that gave them a carbon footprint reduction for the entire company of four percent. So the entire big corporation reduced the carbon footprint by four percent. By doing this change. And it wasn't that they went to lightweight bottles. They went to lighter weight bottles. And they didn't tell anybody. They didn't tell they didn't tell the buyers. They didn't tell the press. They didn't tell consumers, and they had no change in their sales. Figures. And in the process, they actually saved, almost a million dollar in glass glass costs buying the the lighter weight class. So I think finding the right wines to make the change for, and and I think that a lot of times those are the under twenty dollar wines. If you can find a nice looking bottle that is lighter, you will have a big big impact. And, I mean, some of the monopolies, including, the Scandinavian ones and the Canadian ones are looking at making that mandatory, and they, they do have a preference for it. Yeah. Already in in Canada, there's some mandatory rate of photos. Yeah. And, and, you know, I agree with you, Erica, that it's not so simple. There's some settings where you can make a big change by just making the decision and it works. But you said this very clearly. And you said they didn't tell anybody and it went well, but that's because they did it at a certain price point. You know, they didn't do it to to this, beautiful thing. And so I think that That's where the sustainable wine brown table is so important because it's connecting, you know, the producer to the person buying the wine and selling the wine, of which there's many in the group. Because I think that until we really explain to the consumer all these concepts, you know, me as a consumer, I'm in the business. I understand this. I I really love this, you know, and and I think I've gotten so much use out of this one packaging. By sharing it with friends and, you know, and and it's not like I'm buying one very often. This was a gift, you know. And so, you know, what is the the carbon footprint of that, you know, compared to to everything that happens around it. And so I think that, we need education of the consumer so that the consumer can decide that they want lighter bottles or they want, you know, they don't want any wood more wooden boxes for fine wine. I mean, all the ground crews are still in wooden boxes. If we're making a line in Argentina that we want to sell at a similar price and we don't put it in a wood box, you know, then the consumer perceives it as lesser, which already it's hard to compete with, you know, the ground crews. So I think that, this education and thinking of how we we connect to the consumer and the consumer is very tired of what they call greenwashing. You know, they're tired of of hearing from people that in the end just want to make money. And so I think it's very important that we be very honest, very methodical, a very science based on on what we're saying. And, this is why sustainability certifications are so important. The one we started in Argentina is very scientific. You have to show the data. You are inspected by an official agent. But I think we need to go even beyond that to share information because for example, right now, something very important that we are working on is, carbon sequestration. You know, most vineyards, sequester all the carbon that they generate in terms of shipping and bottles and all these things you were talking about, the, you know, thirty percent is the bottles. But actually, if you did the math on how much carbon, Evinior, between cover crops, and that's where Evinior with cover crops is much better for the environment than Evinior without. So that's why you can even make an argument for organic farming that's very biodiversity conscious. You know, you have this this, carbon sequestration, but actually making the calculations is very, expensive. You need to bring experts you need to do a lot of, measurements. What small winery would be able to do this? You know, so I I actually think that, what what we should would need to do at the at their sustainability round table is also get, different sized wineries together to present problems they have and then find some solutions where, things can be shared. At the Gatina Institute, we do a lot of research we've been around since nineteen ninety five, and everything is shared. Because it's published with the rest of the industry at Kentina, and we provide services even for things like virus testing to other wineries. So I think it's very important that, yes, we have to think of making money because otherwise know, we can't pay salaries, we can't last, but sometimes we will have to collaborate with our competitors. Even if if usually we're trying to win, to be number one, we need to collaborate because if we don't share this, this knowledge on how to address climate change and how to address so many challenges. You know, maybe we won't be making wine the way we are now in a hundred years. Yeah. I there's two things in what you just said that I think are key. One is the science based metrics. We we have to, as a global wine industry, we have to agree on what the key metrics are. If we have a look at our industry, where do we have the biggest impact on environmental people and where does environmental people have the biggest impact on us? These are this is what we call a materiality analysis in in in the financial on the ESG side. But we have to do that for the industry. We've done it in lots of places, but we have to do it as a global industry as well. And we have to set, the science based metrics for for the most important things, and then we have to streamline that so we can compare it, globally, but also so that individual producers don't have to report one way to one buyer, another way to another buyer, a third way to their certification program. A fourth way to their investors so that we have, you know, we've decided on how to calculate these things. And that process, I think, a lot run runs into what you're saying about the bigger the bigger producers. We have, we have a responsibility and an opportunity, vis a vis the, the industry. We can actually do test things and tell the medium size and smaller producers what works and what doesn't work. If if I if I implement a, a program let's say I I implement a program for carbon sequestration, maybe I collaborate with university. I mean, our group has a full time person working on sustainability, not that everybody can can have that. But we can share that knowledge because sustainability work is pre competitive. Anything that benefits or pretty much anything, the benefits me as a company, It benefits me even more if my competitors do it as well. If we're looking at water, for example, if we find ways to save, save and reuse water, then it doesn't it it it's not gonna be enough if everybody else who works on the same aquifer or groundwater table don't. So it's better that I share. It's better for us as a company, but it's also better for us as a industry. And we're all very sensitive climate change. We're kind of a canary in the coal mine. We're gonna be affected by climate change much quicker than a lot of other crops are. So we might as well sell it. Okay. I think what you said about collaboration with, researchers is so important at the Katina Institute, we collaborate locally, but also we collaborated with researchers in France in, United States and Australia. And honestly collaboration to me is the real answer to a lot of these things, but as you said, you know, it's not easy for a winery to fund a research program within their winery. You know, for us, this is something that we've been doing for a long time. We haven't incorporated into our costs. But the way to incorporate to to incorporate a research person is by doing research with with an academic at a university where there's also some government funding. You know, Europe has really good funding for, agricultural research. Mhmm. And, I think that the key to the future will be to connect with academics. And I think that that's where there are issues that academics speak a certain language. It's it's like what I found when I was talking to the finance people, they spoke a different language than I did. I think we have a similar situation between academics in, farming, in winemaking all over the world, and wide producers. And I think that our model of what we've been able to do at Katina and Argentina is a model that I I want to share all over the world because, I think it can work. And for sure, for example, there's an organization called In au juan that's, run, by many people, by the University of Bordeaux, and they have a lot of really great producers in France collaborating on research and sharing research. And so I think that, you know, there has to be groups like that forming all over the world because then you have somebody that knows how to do research because if you do your own research and you do it wrong, you come to the wrong conclusion, and then know, that's a disaster. So I really urge, everybody who might be listening who's a producer to, you know, just go talk to your local university ask them what kind of research they're doing? If you can join in with some data, And I think that wineries of any size could contribute to research projects that are ran by their local universities. And, you know, you could even collaborate across continents. We're doing a pinot noir project right now with the University of Burgundy where they are studying the behavior of pinot noir across the world. And they have a site in California, you know, in Germany and France in Argentina. And it's just fascinating to to look at one variety all over the world, and we are learning so much. And I think they are too, and it and it's it's really fantastic. And so I really urge people to do more of that. I agree with that. I I think, in a way, those of us who work with with sustainability, have to become translators. I mean, both you and I have science, backgrounds. Your medical doctor, I have a master's degree in medical biology, but we've also worked in wine. I'm making a pinot noir right now. You're gonna have to try it. Yes. I would like to. And I've also worked in in in finance, but we become translators between these languages to show that we're we're actually very often looking for the same results. We just use different different ways to communicate to get there. And the communication, I I think, will be one of the key things with the sustainable wine round table because we we will bring our research and our knowledge of what it takes to produce wine to this dialogue we will have with. So so, just to say, sustainable wine roundtable, some of the, some of the retailers that are already members, apart from the Scandinavian monopolies who were really early on, and and and example, sustainable law, the Swedish monopoly are open to sharing their research that they're doing. I mean, they have I think they have eight people, employed full time for sustainability or something. There's a whole thing. You know, what's fantastic about them is that they've taken the time to analyze every code in every country Yeah. And and decide, is this a sustainable code? Yeah. But I don't think many other, you know, buyers have that that kind of No. And and they can actually share it then with you. We have wake roast was an early member. Whole Foods is also a founding member. Legal is a founding member. They will also be able to share between them what they're what they're doing and and start streamlining how they're asking for sustainability reporting from from the producers. So in this way, and we all I mean, the the group even has journalists, so jansis robinson dot com is is a member who's a founding member of the sustainable wine roundtable. And that means we have the whole chain from early production. We have materials producers. We have the wine producers. We have the importers. We have retailers. I and and and I know that the group is interested in collaborating with other organ stations. We have, the international wineries for climate action are members of the group. And there's I I just I see this as the necessary next step for the wine industry. We need to find the common common denominators and and make our message clearer. I have worked in, just like you with sustainability for a long time now. I even left the wine industry for a few years to work with food because I felt like things weren't happening fast enough in wine. We weren't we were behind we have been behind food, but so much is happening in wine sustainability in the last couple of years. And and this this new speed and this new organization, I can't help being very excited about where it will take us in a in a few years. So are you happy that you are remembering? I love our time. I I I look forward to continuing this discussion I think we we're exactly at thirty minutes. Yes. And, that was really fun. Oh, let's see. I don't think I see any questions. Let's see. Questions in the In question. Let me see what we have here. Oh, because oh, okay. Here's the question. Oh, maybe their comments. Let's see. When we talk about sustainability, transparency, info metrics, what is the degree of responsibility that the government of each country should have? Should, be a standardized measure. I mean, my answer to that is, you know, the the government should be responsible, but that's not happening. And so and only way to talk to the government is by voting, and we have one vote per person, which is a fantastic democracy. You know, I I've lived in a military government. So I I believe in democracy. So I think that the government needs to establish criteria for their country. But again, you know, we have, you know, some of the richer countries produce four to five times more carbon emissions. For example, Argentina produces per capita, twenty five percent of the carbon emissions of the United States. So there is a lot of unfairness already in the world with some of the of the wealthier countries producing so many more so much more carbon than than, you know, other, you know, countries in developing, in the developing world. So I don't think we can tell the government what to do. So, that's why, you know, I think we need to get together as producers and figure out the metrics and share it with other producers and then hope that the government will see what we're doing and take it seriously. Like, for example, the system Volage, which is a government institution also in Canada. There's some monopolies who are putting it in into law, but most of the world does not have these kinds of government fires. And that's great because, you know, every country chooses their their system. And so I think that, I don't think we're going to get be able to get the the government to do much more than maybe give, incentives for solar and wind. I think that's a very, very important. And the more the governments do that, the better. But again, you know, it's you cannot tell the government what to do. You can just, vote. Yeah. I I really don't think that the metrics for the wine industry will fall on governments. I think the industry itself is the industry itself is going to be responsible for agreeing on on the metrics and the standardized measures. However, I believe that the government should be the incentivizing the practices that Of course. That improve these metrics. So so, especially, especially maybe on carbon and water. And I also want to say that the sustainable wine roundtable will not replace the local, the sustainability certification programs. We we want to work with all those programs and maybe set an international global benchmark for those programs to to look at. So they they can see you. Okay. Well, the sustainable wine roundtable says that packaging is really important. It needs to be included. We're not including it. We will look at that. But we're not gonna take away the the local programs because they need it needs to be local as well to have a an understanding of local needs, local needs and conditions and and priorities. We I mean, there's there's a few global questions that stand everywhere. And but then, you know, water is more important in some places, less important in some places. Forced labor is an important question in some places, not so important in other places. There's a question, Erica, about Russia, and I don't know the answer. She's Russia. I'm guessing with, my group they does Russia take part in your activities in that group? Any wineries? No. There are no there are no Russian wineries that I know of. I don't think there are any Russian members of the sustainable wine round table. In at the beginning of next year, when we opened up to general membership, we would love to have. We would have love to have Russian members. Laura and I are are also active in, a women's group in wine with the female female leaders in in wine that we've been in for, a while. And, I know that one of our Russian members is actually part of, this conference as well. So we have we have Tyson Russia. Maybe we should invite invite her as well. I'm not gonna name any names in case she doesn't wanna be in it. Great. Right. But, Yeah. So I assume that we are aren't we supposed to finish at eight thirty, Erica? The presentation? Yeah. We have we have, we have a couple of more minutes in case anybody has any questions. Okay. Okay. Very good. Not not right now. So, yeah, I just, I just I want to say that that, if anybody is interested in the financial side of of, sustainability or reporting. I I do recommend reading up on it. Right now, it's mainly investors who care. And I and I used to work in finance before I fell in love with, I fell in love with wine while I was working as a biotech equities analyst in so I was in the financial industry and just left everything and and went into wine because wine has a tendency to do that to people. And back then, nobody cared about sustainability. And now it's, every every earnings call. Every big group of of investors has some sort of policy on BlackRock, which is, has often been painted as the the big wolf in the in the in the investment industry are doing great things in pushing their companies to become more sustainable, report more clearly. Greenwashing is there's there's no room for greenwashing anymore. We can't base our sustainability communication purely in storytelling anymore. There needs to be measurements. And one thing that keeps being repeated by, around this topic is what you you can control what you can measure. So you have to measure things. You can't just say, we did this and this and this, and that should be good. You have to measure where we're starting, and we made these changes. Where did that take us? Here's our goal. This is how far we got along our lines for our goal. We, and it becomes an antidote to greenwashing. Let's put it that way. And, Eric, I think that today, for sure, it's important to, be able to, explain your sustainability program in a in a quantified way. You know, we use GRI reporting, and, it's really, a demand for many of the wine buyers around the world. Yeah. I think that the consumer interest, or understanding of sustainability is very varied according to country, according to product. And that's, you know, big job that we have out there, because I I disagree with you about the greenwashing not being there. I think there's a lot of I know it's there, but they they there's, you know, there's less and less room for it. It's definitely there. I I think that that a lot of consumers are so tired of of hearing these these words, that that, you know, for example, a lot of them just believe in, you know, are you organic certified? And I understand the consumer. You know, they they want to see it on the label. They want to see proof. This is why we also put our sustainability certification on the label. If we have found the vineyards organically, you could put that on the label, but I think that, there's so much more place for education of the consumer on what these things are. And I see still a very big issue this the the smaller producer. I I don't think you can ask a smaller producer, to do all these metrics. You know, in Argentina, fifty percent of the producers own less than five hectares. You know, that's less than ten ten acres. But that's, you know, that's that's a lot smaller than, you know, in in in the in the rest of the Americas in North America. You know, I don't know what the numbers are in Europe. But, you know, a lot of these producers, you know, they they have really urgent needs to do with climate again, you know, with with with climate, problems. And I think that that's where that question about the government. I I do think that the government has a role to perhaps help spread information, and that can be done through some of the academic institutions, many of which are public. So I I do think that there is a a role for the government, and I think it's quite urgent that something happened. Yeah. I think help helping the, smaller producers make these calculations in the easiest possible way. It's also part of the responsibility of organizations like the roundtable. So I I think you can get in part with that. Now I think we're out of time. Yes. I appreciate it. Lovely talking with you as always. Good. Everybody in Italy enjoys the conference. Next time, I wanna come live. I really, really love verona. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. We hope you enjoy today's episode brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held November seventh and eighth twenty twenty two in verona Italy. Remember tickets are on sale now. So for more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor of love and we are admitted to bringing you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, requests, and ideas. For more information on how to get in touch, go to Italian wine pot cast dot com.
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