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"The beauty of the California Sustainable Winegrowing Program is its simplicity: a couple of hours for the self-assessment questions, then you review the results and pick the areas that you want to improve first. With the new, on-line version, it is even quicker and easier." CSWA Board Member - Cooper-Garrod Vineyards
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Economic Tools to Assess Costs & Benefits of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices
Vineyard Economic Tools |
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- Trunk Disease Management Tool: Grapevine trunk diseases eventually infect every vineyard in California and can significantly reduce yields in mature vineyards, often leading to premature replanting. If adopted in young vineyards, preventative practices can reduce these negative effects. This web-based tool is designed to help growers assess the costs and economic benefits of implementing various preventative practices at different ages of vineyard maturity.
- Sprayer Decision Tool - Air Blast vs. Electrostatic Sprayers: This tool assists growers in comparing the financial cost of air blast dilute sprayers (fan assisted) and electrostatic sprayers. While electrostatic sprayers can cost up to twice the price of air blast sprayers, they may allow vineyard managers to reduce the material applied in the vineyard up to 25% without decreasing efficacy in addition to documented water savings. Once completed, the tool provides a summary of the present value for the two sprayer types allowing growers to determine potential payback periods for each sprayer.
- Dust Mitigation Methods Comparison Tool: This tool has been designed to aid in creating and implementing an effective and cost efficient dust control strategy to protect air quality. The tool provides helpful information on different dust control techniques, types of palliatives commonly used, a simple worksheet for tracking your dust control strategies over time, and a cost comparison calculator that will help inform you of the most cost effective method for you to maintain unpaved roads.
- Vineyard Sustainable Water Management Tool: This tool is designed to help growers create an effective sustainable water management strategy that helps save both water and money, as detailed in Chapter 5 of the California Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Workbook. An efficient sustainable water management strategy contains many complex decisions and is highly variable across regions, varieties, and grape growing goals. This tool can be used to establish a baseline for tracking decisions over time to better understand the economic impact of different water management decisions. The tool includes sections on: vineyard layout, irrigation scheduling, monitoring (water quality, irrigation system, moisture), and other water uses (frost protection, dust control, cover crops, and summer cooling).
- Certification Cost Benefit Evaluation Tool: This tool allows potential certification applicants to evaluate the expected benefits and investments associated with the first year of certification. Some expected benefits include meeting new market needs and improving sales relationships. The tool was developed by sustainability experts at thinkstep and is modeled on their well-established Business Value of Sustainability System TM. The tool development was guided by feedback from current certified participants who attained multiple benefits of certification.
Winery Economic Tools |
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- Winery Water Efficiency and Hot Spots Tool: This tool walks users through the steps needed to identify the highest water using activities ("hot spots") at the winery, and results in a conceptual facility water balance to understand where water is being used throughout the winery. This information can be used to promote discussion among staff about where and how water is used and can focus water efficiency improvement projects to target hot spots. The tool also helps users consider the tangible and intangible costs of water and the multiple benefits of improving water use efficiency. After using this tool, a vintner can use the supplemental Winery Water Budgeting Tool (below) to estimate the complete cost of water.
- Winery Water Budgeting Tool: This tool can be used to estimate your current cost of water, including the costs of acquiring water, using the water, and disposing of that water. Use this tool after first completing the Winery Water Efficiency and Hot Spots Tool.
- Solid Waste Audit: This tool provides wineries with easy-to-follow steps for estimating the volume of solid waste generated at their facility by type: pomace and lees, diatomaceous earth, barrels, glass, cardboard, paper, capsules, cork, plastic, wood pallets, packaging, bins, food, landscaping yard waste, and metals. Creating a baseline for solid waste is the first step in creating a solid waste management strategy as outlined in Chapter 12, Solid Waste Reduction and Management, of the California Code of Sustainable Winegrowing. The tool covers how to collect available information, how to conduct a solid waste audit, identifying disposal practices, and estimating the costs and revenues for managing each waste stream.
- Certification Cost Benefit Evaluation Tool: This tool allows potential certification applicants to evaluate the expected benefits and investments associated with the first year of certification. Some expected benefits include meeting new market needs and improving sales relationships. The tool was developed by sustainability experts at thinkstep and is modeled on their well-established Business Value of Sustainability System TM. The tool development was guided by feedback from current certified participants who attained multiple benefits of certification.
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