Australian wine sector environmental performance

Subscribe to Daily Wine News RSS feed

Subscribe to Daily Wine News e-mail

Browse the DWN Archive by date

The inaugural Australian Wine Industry Stewardship survey results have been released by the Winemakers' Federation of Australia, covering the environmental stewardship activities of more than 2,700 grapegrowers from around Australia.

Results from grape growers supplying participating companies indicate:

59% have a property management plan in place

83% maintain groundcover in the vineyard mid row

69% use soil moisture monitoring to plan irrigation schedules

62% use drip irrigation

56% use soil and / or petiole analysis to plan fertiliser applications

44% of grape growers have participated in information workshops and training provided by their regional natural resource management board or catchment authority

21% participate in an on farm nature conservation program.

Chief Executive of the Winemakers¹ Federation, Stephen Strachan, said that both the participation rates and results were pleasing.

“The Australian Wine Industry Stewardship (AWIS) program was initiated to allow the Australian wine sector to collectively respond to increasing demands from retailers, governments and investors for proof of sound environmental practices”, he said.

“We have traded on our reputation of being ‘clean and green’ and now AWIS provides the framework to further demonstrate our environmental stewardship.”

“Through the AWIS program, the Winemakers¹ Federation has undertaken a comprehensive review of the environmental management activities already occurring in the Australian wine sector as well as reviewing environmental expectations within our key export markets and activities of our competitors”, Strachan said.

“The survey is yet another tool to allow us to demonstrate concisely and conclusively that Wine Australia is an environmentally responsible brand, as well as to identify areas for improvement.”

The survey is part of a suite of initiatives underway in the Australian wine industry, including regional environmental management systems, international collaboration to develop a wine industry greenhouse gas accounting tool, and the development of an industry life cycle assessment tool to assist wine companies to manage their environmental performance.

The full AWIS survey results and other AWIS reports will be available on the Winemakers’ Federation website at www.wfa.org.au