BC Sustainable Winegrowing Program
The British Columbia Sustainable Winegrowing Program (BC SWP) aims to foster grape and wine production and winery hospitality services that enhance environmental quality and the resource base on which the industry depends, is economically viable, and improves quality of life for growers, producers, and society as a whole. The BCWGC Sustainable Practices Committee, with the assistance of Insight Environmental Consulting, designed the BC SWP using a number of compatible programs from around the world as a guide, extensive research conducted by Insight, and considerable input from committee members, pilot participants and external reviewers.
Contributors consistently expressed the desire to develop a program with substance that provides a concrete set of practices for winegrape growers, winemakers and winery hospitality providers to adopt at their discretion. Program participation is voluntary and a self-assessment approach is used to evaluate practices. After widespread adoption is achieved, third party assessment and certification will be made available to reinforce the credibility of the program and ensure it is setting high and verifiable standards for sustainability. Industry input will help determine the format of the certification program.
The self-assessments and guidebooks for vineyards, wineries and winery hospitality services are now available!
Click here to download the vineyard self-assessment and guidebook
Click here to download the wineries self-assessment and guidebook
Click here to download the winery hospitality self-assessment and guidebook
Hard copies of the assessments and guidebooks are available for $10 + $ 5 shipping/handling +HST for BC orders ($20 + $10 shipping/handling + HST for out of province).
To order, please contact the BC Wine Grape Council
Email: bcwgc@telus.net Tel: (250) 767-2534 Fax: (250) 767-0094
Complete your self-assessment online!
A nifty, user-friendly online tool is available that includes the vineyard, winery and winery hospitality self-assessments linked to score cards and graphs. The tool enables the user to quickly see which areas of sustainability their organization is excelling in and where improvements can be made, evaluate how the organization is progressing from year-to-year, and compare their scores with industry averages. The online tool is accessed by obtaining a user name and password from the BCWGC (Email: bcwgc@telus.net Tel: (250) 767-2534). Workshops will be held in fall 2011 to demonstrate the online tool and assist particpants in getting started on their assessments.
