2022 has been an outstanding year for IWCA – you could say our best yet. That makes it a hard year to sum up! We’ve narrowed it down our “Top 3” highlights:
#1: Growing our Movement of Forward-Looking Wineries
12 wineries joined IWCA this year, bringing IWCA’s membership to 37 wineries in total! Of these, 23 are Gold- and Silver-level members and 14 are Applicant members, on track to reach full membership in the coming year. In addition, 13 Applicant wineries achieved Silver Member status and Alma Carraovejas, one of our member wineries from Spain, achieved Gold Member status.
Our 23 Gold- and Silver-level members (more than double our 2021 membership) stretch across nine countries and five continents. They are leading the charge for climate action in the sector, having completed a Scopes 1-2-3 GHG emissions inventory, publicly reported their progress on emissions reductions, and begun making changes in their businesses toward a 2050 Net Zero goal.
Learn more about IWCA member wineries’ progress measuring and reducing their emissions in our latest Annual Report.
#2: Raising Awareness of Climate Change in the Wine Sector
We have actively worked to raise awareness on climate change and climate action in wine throughout the year.
One venue for doing so has been at wine trade events. We were at Vinexpo Paris and Barcelona Wine Week at the beginning of 2022; in a busy month of June, our member wineries in the U.S. represented IWCA at Napa Thrives, we joined the Sustainable Wine Roundtable Global Conference, and we had a voice at the Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference & Trade Exhibition. September saw IWCA on a panel at the Wine Scholar Guild Webinar.
Through these key events and others, we built our presence and raised our voice at an international level on climate issues – something we will continue doing over the next year with the launch of our new communications strategy.
That’s not all – in 2022, we also:
launched a Spanish-language version of our website.
released our 2nd Annual Report, featuring all 37 of our wineries and transparently reporting on member wineries’ GHG emissions.
raised awareness about IWCA and climate action in the media. In 2022, IWCA was featured in 72 articles and podcasts!
#3: Raising the Bar on GHG Emissions Accounting Approaches
IWCA made great strides in 2022 to develop GHG accounting tools and establish rigorous protocols for measurement, verification, and data protection.
We released two new GHG calculators to help wineries in Australia and New Zealand conduct emissions inventories. We also issued a new standardized inventory and auditing process for our wineries, developed in collaboration with LRQA.
Not only did this establish robust standards and consistency, but outlined a process by which Silver and Gold-level member wineries can achieve an official IWCA Member Certificate. The certificate acts as a public affirmation that the winery has achieved IWCA Silver or Gold Member requirements and paves the way for wineries, and their distributors, to utilize the IWCA logo/seal on their wine bottles if they wish.
There is so much more we could highlight from our work to grow our collective of sustainable wineries and strengthen a global, collective commitment to safeguard the future for wine. We are deeply grateful to our members, partners, and champions for making the year such a success. We look forward to building further on our momentum, together, in 2023!