International Wineries for Climate Action (IWCA) is a collaborative working group of environmentally committed wineries taking a science-based approach to reducing carbon emissions across the wine industry.
Our goal is to share best practices that mitigate climate change impacts in vineyard and winery operations so that we can act collectively to decarbonize the global wine industry—applying direct solutions that avoid purchasing carbon offset credits.
BACKGROUND IMAGE: Silver Oak and Twomey Cellars
OUR STORY
IWCA was founded in 2019 by Familia Torres (Penedes, Spain) and Jackson Family Wines (California, USA) to galvanize the global wine community to create climate change mitigation strategies and decarbonize the industry.
Miguel A. Torres, fourth generation and President at Familia Torres, and Katie Jackson, second-generation proprietor and Senior Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility at Jackson Family Wines, at the launch signing of IWCA in February 2019 in Barcelona, Spain.
Since our founding, IWCA—registered as a 501(c)6 nonprofit organization in the United States—has welcomed more than 30 new member and applicant member wineries.
We have developed rigorous methodologies to measure greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) footprints. We are raising awareness in the viticulture community of the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And we share strategies and best practices to reduce emissions in the wine sector as we mobilize wineries worldwide to adopt emissions reductions strategies.
CLIMATE CHANGE & WINE
Climate change poses an urgent and existential threat to the wine sector.
Global temperature changes are fundamentally shifting where, when, and what kind of wine can be grown, putting the future of multi-generational local wineries at risk. Unpredictable weather patterns are affecting crop abundance and grape chemistry and quality. Increasingly frequent extreme events, from droughts to flooding to wildfires, place entire harvests—and businesses—in danger.