Continuous improvements- Securing your gains

The environment is an essential factor for consideration throughout all sectors of the wine industry – from vineyards and wineries to global supply chains. Action on all fronts is needed to protect our natural resources, while delivering customer requirements and to play our part in addressing environmental issues. This conference aimed to help the industry to improve its resilience and secure future gains through continuing to manage environmental challenges.

Speakers at the two day conference held at the Ridley Hall, Adelaide Showgrounds, presented information and discussion on a range of topics that are both vital and timely for the wine industry – Water, Carbon, Energy, Waste, and Biodiversity – and put these in the context of the value chain throughout the sector.

From the BUSINESS perspectives, these included:

David Michell (Director, Michell Pty Ltd) began the conference with some amazing figures on reductions in cost for water and waste in the context of the wool industry – an inspiration to any organisation to have a close look at what it is doing with resource use and waste minimisation.  Drawing from his wide experience in a range of industries including electronics and sportswear, Ab Stevels (Delft University, Netherlands) talked about the fact that “green” often leads to cost reduction and the need to measure and to start action.  In a very informative and entertaining talk, Rob Glastonbury (DeBortoli Wines)Rob also highlighted the complex journey encountered in grappling with some “30,000 pages of legislation” of relevance to environmental impacts of wine production systems.  Peter Hayes gave a perspective on the drivers for sustainable wine production most particularly in the global context, stressing the need for industry unity behind a credible national certification scheme. 

The session on ADAPTATION addressed a range of emerging issues.  Sarah Park (CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems) described recent work investigating wine industry attitudes and responses to climate change and the relative contributions and likelihood of incremental and transformational change.  A keynote international speaker, Antonio Graça (Sogrape Vinhos, Portugal), gave a most interesting account of how Portugal came to recognise and value the origins and diversity of the range of varieties and clones of grapevines that exists in Portugal – the establishment of a national collection will be fundamental to their efforts in innovation in production required as a result of predicted climate change.  A regular contributor to AWIECs past, Jeff Baldock (CSIRO Land and Water) provided with solid scientific basis, the potential benefits of soil carbon – from both the technical and agronomic perspectives.  Paul Hawken (Natural Capital Institute,USA) delivered a thought provoking address on how to make the most out of the authenticity and natural attributes of wine and the need for sustainable and holistic production.

In a novel approach to the DEBATE topic “That organic/biodynamic wine production is more sustainable”, two teams of enthusiastic members of Debating SA took on the challenge.  In the end, adjudicator Fraser Bell, deemed the team for the negative as the winner based on the popular vote of delegates.

Keynote presentations for day two commenced with a session focussed on RESOURCES, headed by a succinct description of the current state of water resource availability in the MurrayDarlingBasinfrom Tom Rooney (Waterfind).  Emerging standards on ‘water footprinting’ were concisely presented by Brad Ridoutt (CSIRO), and is an area likely to be of increasing importance in sustainability performance measurement in the future.  With the aid of some dazzling presentation technology, Andy Chambers (Green Ochre) made a strong case for the need for the value of biodiversity to be recognised on the balance sheet, citing examples of the critical contribution of biodiversity in production systems.  Concluding these was a superb presentation from General Michael Jeffery (Outcomes Australia), with a well researched and passionate call to practical action by all custodians of agricultural land in order to address and relieve the increasing pressure on dwindling natural resources.

The session on CARBON/ENERGY gave a series of perspectives on energy costs and some ideas on how the industry might respond to minimise the impact of future increases.  With all the media ‘noise’ in recent times, it was refreshing to hear Tim Moore (Northwest Carbon) thoughtfully describe his view on the nature and potential impacts of the carbon pricing scheme that has just passed federal parliament.  Richard Turner (ZEN Energy Systems) gave a perspective on some possible commercial solutions to power usage, generation and storage as it might affect the wine industry and regional centres.  The potential of biogas, produced and recovered from wastes, has long been mooted, and the conference heard about innovative initiatives in two very different industries that have put this into practice – Mark Anderson from Tarac and Janine Price from the Pork Industry.  Furthering the theme of innovation, Darren Oemcke (DO Consulting) gave some perspectives and explanations on a range of technologies that offer real and available opportunities to reduce energy costs.  One such example was highlighted in more detail by Ryan McKee (AGL) through the example of a cogeneration plant at Cooper’s Brewery inAdelaide.

Finally, the conference summation was presented by three of the organising committee:  Russell Johnstone (Orlando Wines) gave a historical context to the initiatives and past gains made by the wine industry in environmental sustainability.  This was followed by Mark Gishen (South Australian Wine Industry Association) who described some of the knowledge that has been developed from previous efforts, including estimates of greenhouse gas emissions factors fro grape and wine production.  In closing, Gioia Small (Treasury Wine Estates) highlighted the need for the industry to continue its efforts to keep moving forward by concisely summarising the key messages that emerged from all other presenters.

One each of the two days, a WORKSHOP session was also held, covering an range of topics including:

• Organic and Biodynamic wine production – coping with weather extremes and other pressures.  Industry experts discussed with delegates about their own experiences, and were updated on some of the latest scientific research around chemicals and the impacts of various farming systems.
• Entwine Australia– the workings of the wine industry’s own national environmental certification system was presented with some case studies showing data on improvement; for information about the program and membership application forms: http://wfa.org.au/entwineaustralia
• Improving sustainability – demonstrated some practical methodologies that wine companies can adopt for improving environmental and business sustainability, with a key focus on examples of waste management.
• Wastewater – the new GWRDC resource toolkit developed to help the industry better understand and manage winery wastewater was presented for interactive discussion.
• The Australian Packaging Covenant – the benefits for the wine industry were explained as well as the workings of the Mentor program run by SAWIA to help wineries become involved with reduced cost.

The 6th AWIEC provided a wide breadth of information to help the wine industry integrate environmental and business sustainability.

The 7th AWIEC is planned for September 2013 – stay posted for more updates.

DOWNLOAD PRESENTATIONS                          

BUSINESS SESSION

David Michell Environmental sustainability = Good business download

Ab Stevels Connecting Environmental performance with company profits download

Rob Glastonbury The Anatomy of a Year or Two download

Peter Hayes A perspective of market drivers for sustainability download

                    
ADAPTATION SESSION

Sarah Park Managing change in the Australian wine industry download

Antonio Graca Grapevine diversity preservation in Portugal download

Jeff Baldock The benefits of Carbon farming download

Paul Hawken Wine, taste, and sustainability (transcript not available)

   
RESOURCES SESSION

Tom Rooney Water in the Murray-Darling Basin download

Brad Ridoutt Water Footprinting download

Andy Chambers Biodiversity, business and the bees download

Maj. Gen. Michael Jeffery Resources – “you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone” download

    
CARBON/ENERGY SESSION

Tim Moore Carbon pricing – compliance challenges download

Richard Turner Renewable energy future download

Biogas: case studies

Mark Anderson Tarac Technologies – biogas energy recovery download
Janine Price Australian Pork industry – emissions to energy download

Darren Oemcke Hybrid and alternative energy options for the wine industry download

Ryan McKee Lowering your energy costs - case studies download

WORKSHOPS

Organic /Biodynamic

Wastewater

Improving Sustainability

Packaging

EntWine