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Sustainability

Sustainability establishes the criteria of how the world should be to secure our needs and continue growing without compromising future generations.

At Alliance Wine we aim go one step further and generate positive impact in the wine sector by embedding and executing our sustainability strategy within the team and our business strategy. Alliance Wine’s sustainability strategy also aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

This is the start of a longer journey. As a first conscious step, we have started this journey by creating a sustainability strategy, based on the analysis of our company as a whole, in which the actions of our individual departments, and our network of wineries and growers shape our whole impact. 

Behind the scenes, Alliance Wine has been working on the execution of this sustainability strategy taking into consideration the triple balance between people, planet and profit, while maintaining a holistic and systemic approach, and using innovation consciously to solve problems. 

Taking into account that collaboration is key for any sustainability strategy, we joined the Sustainable Wine Round Table in September 2021 as founding members in order to collaborate and drive transformational change in the wine industry.

We are all – consciously or unconsciously - on this journey now. We embark to embed positive impact into our everyday practices in the world of wine. 

On this page, we will update you with our most recent articles on sustainability matters and aim to address your questions - or at least the ones we have the answers to!

Our Sustainability Partners

Sustainable Wine Round Table

A global collaborative platform to advance sustainability across the wine industry from production to retail. 

Sustianable Wine Roundtable

Porto Protocol
A global wine community sharing knowledge and solutions to bring climate action to life.

Sustainable Restaurant Association
Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) exists to accelerate change towards an environmentally restorative & socially progressive hospitality sector in the UK.

Harpers Sustainability Charter
The Harpers Sustainability Charter is aimed at UK-based drinks-related trades and sectors, championing those that are demonstrably advancing sustainable best practices across their businesses, and thus helping advance the wider trade in meeting globally pressing sustainability goals.

Sustainability FAQs

 If we google the word sustainability, we will mainly find images associated with the environment. It is quite unusual to find pictures of people when we definitely have a direct effect on the natural environment. Our impact is holistic, not only to the environment but also to the rest of society and all of forms of business. It is important to understand sustainability as a systemic correlation between different parts of a whole system. We need to understand all of them, their interactions, causation, and apply scientific knowledge in this field.

Education, collaboration, transparency and trust are some of the most powerful leverage tools within the sustainability framework for Alliance Wine. 

Education is key to generating more impact within society and accentuating the importance for businesses to confront the global, environmental and economic that we are currently facing.

Collaboration is essential to find common ground for the challenges that every professional in the wine sector, and society, in general, are having to deal with.

Sustainability and Positive Impact are concepts that can be used synonymously, but the meanings are slightly different. SUSTAINABILITY is based on the idea of how the world should be to be able to secure our needs and continue growing without compromising future generations. When we talk about POSITIVE IMPACT, we refer to a powerful effect that something, especially something new, has on someone or something. Positive Impact moves one step ahead. It is based on the idea of executing sustainability strategies and applying them to business models, so as to create products and services that offer solutions to the challenges that we are facing. Alliance Wine aims to create products and offer services to our customers that require an innovative mind-set and offer real solutions to real problems.

Taking into account the current climate emergency, our sustainability strategy embraces an important number of environmental challenges. Several working groups are focused on the relevant areas of our operational activities, such as a greenhouse gas emissions inventory for scopes 1-3 to establish annual reduction targets with an important interest in the optimization of national and international supply chain activities. Initiatives are also being undertaken based on external energy assessment in order to reduce energy usage in our facilities. As well as, waste management and policies to streamline our operations and reduce our waste disposal. Furthermore, environmental standards are being set regarding business decisions and relationships with our suppliers. All these activities require the use of circular economy and innovation in all areas as leverage tools.

People are the centre of any sustainability strategy. For this reason, we focus an important part of our resources on social objectives established in our sustainability strategy. We aim to promote to sustainable tourism in wine regions, with regard their culture and products, in line with the SDGs 8 and 12. Moreover, our employees are the heart of this new culture, so we want to enhance their professional growth and welfare with diverse internal activities such as employee development and well-being initiatives. These include the introduction of sustainability responsibilities in job descriptions to maintain a holistic approach to our sustainability strategy. Finally, we embrace other social challenges, such as encouraging responsible drinking through the creation of a genuine social responsibility policy. We also aim to promote leadership among women in the wine sector.

Related Articles

How sustainability was key to Alliance’s ‘In Our Nature’ tasting - The Buyer
Aiming to be fully sustainable as a business is all well and good but how do you do it in the wine business exactly? Alliance Wine drew its line in the sand in September 2021 and since then has aligned its business practices with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals from work in the vineyard through to how finished wines are delivered – even picking a ‘no waste’ restaurant in which to hold its ‘In Our Nature’ tasting. Robert Mason was suitably impressed with what he saw at the tasting and picks 10 wines that all have their art in the right place.
 
How do we define “strategy”? The success of a sustainable strategy is based on doing several things well – not just a few – and on the combination of all of these activities. In other words, it requires a holistic way of thinking.
 
We are fundamentally concerned about three aspects: sustainable farm management, moving towards zero-emission production and the fixation of rural population through employment. We are a small winery, and we know how modest our contribution to these objectives is, but we are sincere in our efforts.
 
Respect for the soil and the vines is paramount, and I will continue to employ more hands and use organic and biodynamic products in favour of cheaper hard chemicals.
 
How to bring consumers, especially younger ones, into closer contact with our industry is a global challenge that we, as wine professionals, all face. As the perception of wine travel as quality tourism grows, more and more people begin to see it as a valuable asset, not only in terms of its positive economic impact but as a decisive factor in protecting the natural and socio-cultural resources of each specific wine region.
 
Most farmers secure their workers from surrounding villages and townships, however, due to land tenure rights in South Africa, whereby anyone living on a farm for more than 10 years are entitled to...
 
Sustainability and weather patterns.
The last thing that any grape grower wants to see at this point is a storm front, and certainly not one that contains hail, but that’s what faced many growers in...
See our Sustainable Producers
Perelada
Spain, Penedès
Domaine Reverdy Ducroux
France, Loire
Odfjell
Chile, Aconcagua
Paul Lebrun
France, Champagne
deAlto Rioja y Más
Spain, Rioja
Domaine de Bonserine
France, Rhône
Bodegas Sumarroca
Spain, Penedès
Quinta da Alorna
Portugal, Tejo
Chanzy
France, Burgundy
Château L’ Escarelle
France, Côteaux Varois en Provence
Real Companhia Velha
Portugal, Douro
Weingut Max Ferdinand Richter
Germany, Mosel
Alemany I Corrió
Spain, Penedès
Domaine Bernard Defaix
France, Burgundy
Tenuta Olim Bauda
Italy, Piedmont
Cave de Ribeauvillé
France, Alsace
Vignerons de Florensac
France, Languedoc-Roussillon
Carlos Lucas Vinhos
Portugal, Dão
Domaine des Herbauges
France, Loire
Roebuck Estates
England, Sussex
Château Lamothe-Cissac
France, Bordeaux
Cantalapiedra Viticultores
Spain, Castilla y León
Maison Antech
France, Languedoc-Roussillon
Bodegas Alceño
Spain, Vino de España
Vinchio Vaglio
Italy, Piedmont
Domaine de Colette
France, Beaujolais
Pradio
Italy, Veneto
Bodegas y Viñedos Tinedo
Spain, La Mancha
Adega de Redondo
Portugal, Alentejo
Sherwood Estate
New Zealand, Waipara
Crocus
France, Languedoc-Roussillon