Wine Australia has joined forces with sustainability consultants, Edge Environment, to develop a carbon Emissions Reduction Roadmap for the Australian grape and wine sector.
Globally, organisations and industries are seeking to better understand how their operations are producing the emissions that cause climate change and the most appropriate, cost-effective and practical approaches to reducing them.
The Emissions Reduction Roadmap (Roadmap) will set achievable carbon emissions reduction targets, guide the sector collectively towards those targets and provide practical information and cost-effective tools to support grape and wine producers.
“We're delighted to be supporting Wine Australia on this key project,” said Olivia Tyler, Managing Director ANZ at Edge Environment. “The criticality for developing and adopting an emissions roadmap for the sector has never been clearer.”
Olivia said Edge had been tasked with developing a roadmap that encompasses the entire Australian wine supply chain, including grape and wine production, processing and distribution.
“The Roadmap will then establish a pathway for the industry to reduce emissions, through the implementation of a series of emissions abatement initiatives and supporting activities,” she said.
The Roadmap will be comprehensive in its approach, creating a baseline, mitigation plan and trajectory through the supply chain across emissions scopes. The tools and resources will be developed for grape and wine producers to support their practices and businesses through the transition.
The development of the Roadmap have already begun with data gathering and the organisation of stakeholder engagement activities. The Roadmap was officially launched through an online webinar on 20 July and a survey is currently being conducted.
Olivia said Edge would incorporate a range of technologies and tools as the basis of their work.
“Edge will quantify the Australian wine sector’s emissions in accordance with industry best practice and alignment with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
“Due to the complexity of calculating an entire industry’s emissions, peer-reviewed and industry produced emissions and life-cycle analyses data will contribute to calculating the emissions.”
She said Edge has previously quantified the Chilean Wine Industry’s emissions and would use the knowledge and experience gained through this process and apply the learnings to the Roadmap.
“A Marginal Abatement Cost Curve will be used to determine the cost–benefit analysis; and a variety of existing publicly available emissions quantification tools will be assessed throughout the project.”
Edge Senior Sustainability Consultant, Julian Marchant, said growers and producers would play an important role throughout the project.
“We will engage growers and producers through interviews, online workshops, surveys, an industry webinar and an industry expert reference panel,” he said.
Extensive engagement with stakeholders across the entire production chain will ensure that the roadmap is not just ambitious, but also clear, practical, and well-supported, with wine businesses and bodies clear on their roles and responsibilities.
Click here to learn more about the project.