Sokol Blosser and the Climate Registry
After joining the Sokol Blosser family a year ago their commitment towards the environment and sustainability helped fuel my own interest in such issues. In addition to the Natural Step training that all managers are sent to I took it upon myself to explore other areas to help further my own knowledge as well as inspire those around me. I began a monthly lunch meeting called the “Green Bag Lunch” as a forum for all staff members to have a voice in our ongoing challenges to be more sustainable. Through group interaction we discovered better recycling policies, composting programs and ways of saving energy and I found myself becoming more passionate about the issues. Wanting to do more and help continue the Sokol Blosser tradition as an industry leader in environmental policies I began exploring the world of carbon neutrality. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
In 2007 Sokol Blosser along with over 30 other wineries from Oregon joined the Governor’s Carbon Neutral Pledge, committing ourselves to working towards carbon neutrality by 2009. A great goal but, what does it mean? As I began to peel away the layers of the issue I only discovered more and more layers underneath. It became increasingly challenging to find concrete information for a term that is relatively well known but not widely applied. While the organizers of the Carbon Neutral Pledge have done an incredible job of gathering local wineries to commit and creating a program that is tailored to the wine industry, I continued to thirst for more information which led me to discover some of the leaders and pioneers in an exciting and new field.
Ecos Consulting Group are the architects for the Governor’s Pledge and have helped implement the policies on how wineries will measure and report the data on their carbon footprint. This is the beginning of becoming carbon neutral, discovering how much carbon you produce. Ecos developed a carbon calculator that helps convert things like mileage and fermentation figures into greenhouse gas emissions. David Vanthof from the Governor’s Office along with the Oregon Wine Board have been spearheading the project and helping disseminate the information to all the wineries that joined the pledge. It has been an ongoing process establishing the protocols and methods for achieving the goal of 30+ wineries being carbon neutral but thanks to the help of many passionate individuals and organizations we are off to a good start. In my desire to learn as much as possible about the term “carbon neutral” I was lead to another organization called the Climate Registry.
A North American non-profit organization founded in March 2007, the Climate Registry acts as an organization that records voluntary and mandatory submissions of GHG emissions. There are currently participants from 39 US states, 7 Canadian provinces, and 6 Mexican states reporting their emissions. This organization, I found, was taking the issue further than any other and establishing internationally accepted protocols. Participants may include businesses, organizations, governments, or tribes. Any GHG submissions reported are done so voluntarily. However, reporting to the Registry requires strict, uniform protocols. Reporters must calculate all their GHG emissions, report the findings to the Registry, and have those calculations verified by an independent, certified third-party. The Climate Registry’s existence is to “provide an accurate, complete, consistent, transparent and verified set of greenhouse gas emissions data supported by a robust reporting and verification infrastructure. Through this effort, the Registry encourages early action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and supports future greenhouse gas reduction efforts across North America.”
After thorough research of the organization and I felt that this was the avenue to pursue that would keep us ahead of the pack and continue a long tradition as industry leaders. The fundamental difference between the Climate Registry and the Governor’s Pledge is the high level of accountability and certification that the Registry requires. We felt it necessary for ourselves to adhere to the highest possible level of reporting that we could find and make our “carbon footprint” as transparent as possible. In May 2008 we joined the Climate Registry as founding members and the first winery reporter. Check it out here.
Thank you to Tymon Lodder of the Climate Registry and Amy Dvorak of Maul Foster in helping me with the research.