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Summerland’s Okanagan Crush Pad Winery is now the first Canadian winery to join the International Wineries for Climate Action.
IWCA is open to any winery, from any country, and employs a three-tiered membership system that allows a diversity of wineries to join.
Okanagan Crush Pad has been accepted as an applicant member having committed to an ISO-14064 audited baseline greenhouse gas inventory. The winery team now has one year to meet IWCA membership requirements and become a silver or gold level member.
“I am proud that the winery team is devoted to this process and to making a full effort to take our land stewardship commitment to the next level,” said OCP founder Christine Coletta. “We started our sustainability push in 2011 by converting our vineyards to organic farming and then in 2014 obtaining organic certification for our winemaking facility. We can now push this commitment beyond farming and winemaking to incorporate all aspects of our business.”
Founded by Familia Torres in Penedes, Spain and Jackson Family Wines from California, IWCA sets out to galvanize the global wine community to create climate change mitigation strategies and decarbonize the industry.
The association is a collaborative working group of environmentally committed wineries taking a science-based approach to reducing carbon emissions across the wine industry.
Members share best practices that lessen climate change impacts in vineyard and winery operations so that the global wine industry can act collectively to decarbonize, applying direct solutions that avoid purchasing carbon offset credits.
“It is important for us to take a deep dive into our practices with a set goal and timeframe in which to achieve the next level of IWCA membership,” said OCP’s new CEO, Darryl Brooker. “Some of the first steps we will take is to conduct a greenhouse gas emissions inventory, followed by an ISO-14064 audit.
“We will be working with Josh Prigge of Sustridge, an industry leading sustainability consulting firm, to guide us through the initial process,” Brooker added. “Once this is complete, we will commit to annual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achieving a 33% reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050. We are also pleased that through IWCA membership we are also a participant in the United Nations’ Race to Zero Campaign.”