After four years of development with a variety of stakeholders, we’re pleased to announce the pilot of the SIP Certified Sustainable Winery program. We are looking for companies throughout California interested in participating in the formal pilot this year. The pilot is limited to 12 participants and we look forward to setting the gold standard for sustainable wine production with SIP Certified Wineries in 2015.
Interested in being a pilot winery? Please contact Beth Vukmanic Lopez at Beth@vineyardteam.org or at 805.466.2288.
We’re kicking off the launch with a self-assessment workshop to provide winery representatives the opportunity to learn about the pilot program and complete a self-assessment with the draft Standards on May 6, 2015 at Cellar 360 – Treasury Wine Estates in Paso Robles. Register for the workshop.
Since 2008, Sustainability in Practice (SIP) Vineyard Certification has provided independent, third-party verification of sustainability practices in 32,000 certified acres throughout California and over 1,500,000 cases of wine. Expanding SIP to the winery level was the logical next step for this growing program. Certification will allow facilities to authenticate their sustainable practices at every level (ex. energy efficiency, water use, recycling, building materials, social equity, financial sustainability). The high bar that SIP sets will continue to be a differentiator in the market, verifying for consumers that each SIP Certified Winery is dedicated to the people, the planet and overall prosperity.