Green Personality of the Year – Kris Beal, executive director of Vineyard Team

Our winner, Kris Beal, has over 20 years of experience as executive director of California-based Vineyard Team, a firm dedicated to promoting sustainable winegrowing through research, education and grower-to-grower networking.

Beal played a pivotal role in the development of the Positive Points Scheme – a self-assessment tool for vineyards using a whole farm integrated approach to management. Since founding the initiative, there have been over 1,000 evaluations across 60,000 acres of land.

Beal also played a role in the development of the ‘SIP’ certification in 2008 – a meaningful third party certification for sustainable wine production. Today, over 43,000 acres and 36 million bottles of wine meet the certification’s strict standards that address everything from air quality and habitat protection to water conservation.

Just last month Beal hosted the International Sustainable Winegrowing Summit, which brought together experts in the field from across the US.

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