Exclusive: SWR completes global sustainability benchmarking pilot

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 01 November, 2024

Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR) has completed the initial phase of a new benchmarking scheme which aims to evaluate the world’s various sustainability standards against a single set of criteria, Harpers can reveal.

Today, the wine sector operates within a framework of around 40 sustainability standards globally. If smaller, niche certifications are considered, the number reaches nearly 70. With those numbers rising all the time, producers, distributors and retailers are facing increasing complexity when it comes to deciding how vineyards operate and wine is marketed.

Putting forward its own answer to this complexity is SWR’s Global Reference Framework (GRF). Announced last year, the GRF is not looking to replace local standards but instead has begun to assess existing certifications by determining how well they align with a broader definition of sustainability and ensure transparency across the wine sector.

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Dr Peter Stanbury, research director at SWR, told Harpers: “At the end of the day, is the certification there to offer a badge of honour, or is it a working process? Retailers want to buy wine that is sustainably sourced, but they don’t know how the standards stack up against each other. Through our framework, retailers will be able to say ‘this standard has reached a certain level of sustainability that has been benchmarked and assessed’.”

So far, the framework has evaluated seven certifications, the results of which were announced to SWR members yesterday (31 October): Equalitas (Italy), Fair’N Green (Germany), Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand, Sustainable Winegrowing Australia, California Certified Sustainable Winegrowing, WIETA (South Africa) and IPW (South Africa).

Still in the pilot stage, the GRF is looking to hone and refine its approach as it goes forward, including its Scoring Matrix. At the moment, the framework takes nine different areas into consideration: regulation concerning new vineyards, vineyard management, soil & health management, biodiversity, energy usage, management of chemical inputs, climate change, carbon reduction & regenerative agriculture and finally waste management.

As part of its research, SWR looked at what sustainability in wine means while also drawing on existing sustainability standards in wine and other agricultural supply chains such as coffee.

That was the starting point, “the Rosetta stone”, says Stanbury, before beginning the task of identifying which metrics should be used to establish best practice.

The need for such a framework, explains Stanbury, is the varying needs of vineyards and producers globally. Social or environmental responsibility might look different in various parts of the world. Instead of trying to come up with a single global sustainability standard or accreditation, a benchmarking framework instead applies the same criteria to all, while allowing the various local or country level standards to be tailored to regions’ individual needs.

“For a retailer or consumer, it’s confusing,” underscores Stanbury. “One wine on the shelf says ‘Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand’, then there’s another one for California. How can you compare them?”

This was highlighted at SWR’s recent The Role of Sustainability Standards in Wine webinar, which looked at how the sector can convert an overload of (sometimes competing) ideas into opportunity for all.

Others are already benchmarking in their own way across the world. Sweden’s Systembolaget for example has been assessing global certifications since 2019, initially focusing on Nordic collaborations. However, the Systembolaget’s sustainability manager, Linda Johansson, stresses the importance of taking the process to a more global level.

For its part, the SWR is considering launching a sticker for bottles which have been GRF approved. However, the scheme wants to avoid being certification in and of itself.

For more information on the evolving world of sustainability accreditations and the battle to make them simpler and more inclusive, see the November issue of Harpers, now available in print and online.

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