Announcement: International Wineries Sustainability Benchmarking Project launches

Calling all winemakers and wineries! We're pleased to announce the launch of the International Wineries Sustainability Benchmarking Project, and we invite you to participate.

The project aims to compare 15 wineries per country with each other and with global best practice. Each participating winery will receive a baseline measurement with regard to their sustainability performance, the ability to compare with peers and world class levels of sustainability, and identify areas of strength and weakness as well as capacity for early improvement. 

Wineries will be represented by both the largest in country as well as mid/medium size community wineries, drawn from the target regions:

• Europe - France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK
• Americas -  Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, USA
• Australasia - Australia, New Zealand
• Africa  -  South Africa

What is the value to a winery?

• Savings in operations cost – recent studies show PROBE provides up to a 5:1 return on investment and average savings of $30,000 a year in medium size manufacturers

• A smarter and broader application of sustainability in the business beyond a simple “carbon reduction” focus that’s backed by the TNS methodology.

• On-going support to achieve their goals the facilitator people can be with them for the whole journey

• The ability to use the 3-tier scalable PROBE for Sustainable Business to map the winery’s  performance against their supply chain and smarter, achievable targets for improvement

• International Best Practice Transfer enabling recipients to identify specific areas for improvement and the potential to collaborate (with other wineries in the regional project) and reduce costs in exporting

• Increase in sustainability credentials potentially opening new brand/marketing opportunities and reducing in country carbon/other government tariffs

• Identifying reductions of scarce and/or harmful substances to reduce safety, liability and regulatory oversight issues

• Easily translating the heretofore complex language of sustainability into a coherent business process and performance framework

The PROBE Benchmarking Methodology

The PROBE (PROmoting Business Excellence) methodology has a long history of providing organisations, governments, change agents, academia and many other institutions with a proven framework for business improvements.

The benchmark is based upon a set of questionnaires that ask factual data questions; and questions about the company’s practice and performance covering all aspects of the winery’s sustainability. Questionnaires are sent out prior to the benchmark and a selected team complete them, at an agreed date the facilitator will conduct the benchmark which will last approximately 5-6 hours.

The benchmark will position the winery against its peer groups and against world class levels of sustainability. It will also identify area of strength and weakness and the winery’s actual capacity for early improvement.  All of this information will be encapsulated in a client confidential tailored report.

All benchmarks are client confidential and data will only be used in non-identifiable and aggregated manner, this data will be used in an overarching industry report which will be jointly authored by TNS and The PROBE Network LLP.

Contact us

Interested to participate, learn more or be part of sponsoring the study?

You can make contact with accredited Advisors at The Natural Step here: http://www.thenaturalstep.org/probe

Alternatively, you can reach the lead contact for the study here:

Gerry Oates
PROBE Network LLP
6th Floor, Building 8, Exchange Quay, Salford,
M5 3EJ. United Kingdom
Tel No. +44 (0)161 932 1196. Fax No. +44 (0)161 932 1100
Mobile +44 7921 387214
www.probe-network.com