Kiwi wine shows sustainability progress across board
New Zealand Wine’s (NZW) Sustainability Report 2025 highlights the strides being made across the island nation’s vineyards and wineries. The progress is welcome in a year that marks 30 years of the trade organisation’s Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ) certification programme.
Headline improvements include an uptick in both wineries and vineyards carrying out targeted initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint. In the 2025 report, which presents data gathered from the 2023-24 growing season, 68% of wineries are carrying out such carbon reduction measures (up 58% from the previous 2022 report), while this figure stood at 56% for vineyards (41% in 2022).
More wineries are trending towards the use of lightweight glass bottles with 63% using them as one of their packaging methods (55% in 2022). Other waste reduction progress includes the 32% of wineries which have improved packaging efficiency (23% in 2022), as well as 68% that incorporate recyclable/biodegradable packaging into their products (55% in 2022).
The 2025 report also highlighted that an impressive 99% of vineyards use non-chemical methods for managing pests, while 100% of agrichemical applications in the country’s wine industry are entered into NZW’s database for analysis and benchmark reporting.
Sustainable pest and disease management is also being pursued via SWNZ’s biosecurity planning which will become mandatory from the 2025/26 season. Biosecurity protection is particularly important in New Zealand as the country’s geographic isolation and climate have protected its vineyards from most of the grape pest and diseases that affect other wine producing nations, something that NZW hopes can be maintained.
NZW also supports ‘A Lighter Programme’, a joint government and agricultural industry venture which has seen UV-C light utilised in vineyards to reduce fungicide dependence. The initiative hopes to demonstrate a sustainable approach for powdery mildew control via these new technologies. Additionally, the Bragato Research Institute (BRI), a wholly owned subsidiary of NZW, in partnership with the Ministry of Primary Industries, is developing 12,000 new variants of Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc, with the hopes of creating, identifying and selecting vines that show resilient traits. These include resistance to drought and frost, as well as natural resistance to pest and disease.
The report also illustrated the industry initiative to promote sustainable employment practices, including the 65% of vineyards and 67% of wineries that adhere to the New Zealand wine industry’s voluntary Code of Conduct for our People. The code demonstrates that as an employer all of the workers are treated fairly and in accordance with the law.
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