STEP 2: ASSESS & PLAN
Assess​
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Review Vineyard Adaptation Practices to Address Climate Impacts
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Use Carbon Footprint Hotspots to Prioritize Climate Smart Practices
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Plan
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How to Assess & Plan for Climate Action
Once you establish why climate action is important to the sustainability of your operation, it is time to assess your current climate smart practices to help you plan where to go from here. This section of the toolkit includes several ways to assess your operation and results in the start of a personalized Climate Action Plan that serves as the foundation of your climate action strategy.
The Climate Action Plan Worksheet guides you through the following areas for assessment and planning:
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Looking at specific vineyard and winery climate smart practices,
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Using industry hotspots or your own hotspots that are identified through a GHG inventory to help prioritize practices,
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Reviewing potential climate action goals to help align and guide the implementation of practices. ​
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Run the Climate Smart Report to Assess and Plan
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Climate Smart Practices and Sustainable Winegrowing
For those familiar with the California Code of Sustainable Winegrowing and Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing (CCSW), many of the climate smart practices found throughout this toolkit will look familiar. In fact, anyone who participates in a California sustainable winegrowing program, including LODI RULES, SIP Certified, Napa Green and other sustainability programs will also see many similarities with practices that they assess and certify. Likewise, numerous soil health practices included in organic, biodynamic and regenerative certifications are included in this toolkit. Many of the best practices already in use by the industry can help reduce the carbon footprint of a vineyard, winery and/or wine and can help vineyards and wineries adapt to climate impacts.
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Climate Smart Report in the CSWA Online System
The California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA) Climate Smart Report is a customized report that summarizes the climate beneficial practices included in the California Code of Sustainable Winegrowing (4th Edition). The report can be generated in the CSWA Online System after the completion of a vineyard or winery self-assessment. The report highlights the 71 climate smart practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase carbon sequestration and/or help vineyards and wineries adapt to climate impacts while providing a roadmap to improve climate smart practices. The report also includes 30 climate smart hotspots, which are priority practices that make the biggest impact, as identified in the study, “California Wine’s Carbon Footprint,” and/or considered important climate smart practices by multiple experts. You can use the report to see how your current practices align with your climate action goals and get ideas for potential improvement steps. The report includes implementation guides for each of the practices to provide specific guidance for practice adoption.
Any California grower or vintner has free access to the CSWA Online System and can complete the climate smart self-assessment criteria and run the report. There is an option within the Online System to complete only the climate smart self-assessment, which is useful for people using this toolkit who participate in other sustainable winegrowing certification programs.
Resources:
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Generate Your Personalized Climate Smart Report
Sign up or login to the CSWA Online System, complete a self-assessment of your vineyard and/or winery and generate your personalized report by clicking “Climate Smart Report” in the Report menu. There is also an option to only complete the climate smart self-assessment criteria (e.g., 42 of the 144 vineyard criteria or 43 of the 105 winery criteria) by selecting “Climate Smart” in the chapter list within the online system.
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Climate Smart Winegrowing: A Roadmap to Address Climate Challenges and Build Resiliency
A companion handout to the CSWA Climate Smart Report that summarizes the 71 climate smart practices included in the California Code of Sustainable Winegrowing (4th Edition).
- Climate Action Plan Worksheet
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Add results to your climate action plan worksheet once you run the CSWA Climate Smart Report (or reviewed relevant climate smart practices if you participate in another sustainability program). You can add the list of practices from the report to the Climate Smart Practices page in the Excel version of the worksheet.
Review Vineyard Adaptation Practices to Address Climate Impacts
Despite the challenges posed by climate change, ample opportunity for adaptation and mitigation exists. A recent literature review conducted by the California Climate Hub synthesized the key climate change impacts that will affect California vineyards. These impacts include increased drought and limited water availability, excess rainfall, extreme heat, increased frost, pest and disease pressure, changing seasonality and increased wildfire and smoke. Climate smart practices can help adapt to these current and expected changes and are detailed in both a summary handout of the key findings and the full literature review paper below.
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Summary Handout: Managing California’s Vineyards for Resilience: Strategies for a Changing Climate
Five strategies for adaptation and mitigation are summarized in this document, which are drawn from the research paper below that synthesizes the literature on the science-backed actions for viticultural response to climate change.
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Research Paper: Managing California’s Vineyards for a Changing Climate: Science-backed Actions for Adaptation and Mitigation
A research paper that provides a curated synthesis of literature on the science-backed actions for viticultural response to climate change across disparate subdisciplines to provide a whole system resource to aid decision support for producers and technical service providers.
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The below table summarizes the effectiveness of practices in adapting the vineyard to and mitigating climate change and which climate impacts each is best at addressing. Use the information in the summary handout and table when creating your climate action plan and prioritizing the climate impacts you want to address.
Use Carbon Footprint Hotspots to Prioritize Climate Smart Practices
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Hotspots are the areas with the most opportunity for improvement identified in a carbon footprint assessment. By understanding industry hotspots, or better yet, your specific operation’s hotspots, you will be able to prioritize and implement practices that make the most impact to reduce GHG emissions.
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A carbon footprint assessment of the California wine industry was conducted in 2011 to understand the specific areas within the winegrape growing and winemaking processes that significantly contribute to GHG emissions. The results are representative of an individual vineyard and winery, even though they show an industrywide perspective on GHG emissions. A carbon footprint literature review was conducted in 2023 and found that the relative importance of emissions from various vineyard and winery activities in the 2011 assessment are largely still accurate and in the range of more recent studies.
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Results from the carbon footprint study identify the major hotspots (improvement opportunities) for the California wine supply chain. To view more details of the results, see the figure below or read the California Wine’s Carbon Footprint: Study objectives, results and recommendations for continuous improvement.
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Vineyard Carbon Footprint:
The net balance of greenhouse gas emissions produced by a vineyard operation’s activities and the carbon sequestered in soil and vegetation. Vineyard activities include grape cultivation, equipment use, irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide application, harvesting, etc.
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Winery Carbon Footprint:
The total amount of greenhouse gases emitted by a winery operation’s activities, including wine production, packaging, distribution, etc.​
Major Hotspots for California Vineyards and Wineries:
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Vineyard Field Emissions​
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Optimize nitrogen management plan
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​Vineyard and Winery Energy​
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Conduct an energy audit of the vineyard and/or winery
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Implement energy efficiency measures
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Install on-site renewable energy options
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Packaging
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Lightweight glass bottles​
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Switch to alternative packaging designs (e.g., bag-in-the box, wine kegs, plastic bottles)
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Distribution
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Optimize distribution network
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Increase percentage of rail transport
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Switch to a low-emissions fleet
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Discuss carbon footprint reduction options with your distribution partner(s)
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Options for Assessing Hotspots:
While new tools and companies are launching at a rapid rate to help companies assess their hotspots, we outline four options for evaluating hotspots for your operation below.
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Use Industry Hotspots from the California Wine Carbon Footprint Study
As noted above, because the results are expected to be representative of individual vineyards and wineries, you can assume your own carbon footprint assessment would show similar results. You can therefore use the industry hotspots as a starting point to help prioritize your own climate smart practices. For instance, since packaging is a major hotspot for wineries, you can prioritize practices to evaluate and address your packaging considerations; or since vineyard energy is a major hotspot for vineyards, you can prioritize practices that will address energy use and renewable energy. (See above for more details or to read the study's report).
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Calculate Relevant Metrics Using the CSWA Metrics Calculator
If you want a better understanding of your operation’s specific footprint, you can use the CSWA Metrics Calculator to calculate several key components of a full carbon footprint assessment. The Metrics Calculator includes nitrogen and energy use metrics for vineyards and energy and greenhouse gases related to energy, refrigerants, packaging and transportation metric for wineries. Though not a complete carbon footprint assessment, you can still compare your results against the industry footprint, and track your own metrics over time to see how they change as you implement additional climate smart practices. Visit the CSWA Online System and navigate to the Metrics Center to get started. Click on the “Take a Tour” button on the top of the page for instructions on how to use the metrics calculator.
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Complete a GHG Inventory Using the International Wineries for Climate Action GHG Emissions Calculator
International Wineries for Climate Action (IWCA) is a collaborative working group of wineries acting together to reduce carbon emissions and decarbonize the global wine industry. IWCA offers a free excel-based calculator that can be used to complete a full GHG inventory of a winery and vineyard operation. Completing a full GHG inventory is the best way to understand your improvement opportunities and to set a baseline that can be used to measure future improvement. IWCA also began offering a simplified version of the calculator for small wineries in 2024. Visit the IWCA website for more details and to download the calculator.
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Use a Commercial Software Option to Complete a GHG Inventory
Many commercial software options, with some designed specifically for the wine industry, are available to complete a full GHG inventory. These options provide helpful features, such as more functionality (allow teams to add information about specific locations, better analysis of results, etc.) but they can be costly (anywhere from $5K/year up to $50K/year or more). To learn about various options, see this guide developed for the Australian wine industry which includes calculators that can be used by California vineyards and wineries: Carbon accounting tools for the Australian grape and wine sector.
Consider Climate Risks for Your Operation
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Understanding your climate risks is also important when prioritizing implementation of climate smart practices. There are many factors about your operation that will determine which risks you need to be aware of and manage, such as your location, overall size of your company, the markets where you sell your wine, etc. Below are some examples of climate risk to evaluate for your operation. California is expected to continue to adopt new laws and regulations to address climate change and, while CSWA will be updating the toolkit periodically, it is recommended that you regularly consult resources to stay up to date on the most current requirements.
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Compliance/Regulatory Risk
California has a number of climate change-related laws and regulations that are relevant for some vineyards and wineries.
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Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation
Requires phase-in of Zero-Emission Vehicles for targeted fleets.
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Zero-Emission Forklift Regulation
Requires phase-out of forklifts using large spark-ignition engines, such as those running on propane and gasoline. ​​
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Requires transition of diesel-powered truck TRUs to zero-emission.
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California’s Corporate Climate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) (currently delayed until July 2025)
Any U.S. company with over $1 billion in annual revenue doing business in California must annually disclose their GHG emissions from Scope 1, 2 and 3 sources. It is estimated that the new requirements will indirectly impact wineries, with a few larger wineries needing to directly comply.
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California’s Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261) (currently delayed until July 2025)
Requires any U.S. company with over $500 million in revenue doing business in California to report on climate-related risks they have identified and the efforts they are employing to mitigate them. It is estimated that the new requirements will indirectly impact wineries, with a few larger wineries needing to directly comply.
Market Requirements Risks
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European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD): A climate disclosure mandate requiring companies to assess and report on risks. ​​​
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Climate Action Plan
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Complete the Climate Action Plan Worksheet
The Climate Action Plan Worksheet will help you create a strategy for climate mitigation and adaptation, identify where to focus time and resources and a plan for implementation. As you make your way through the toolkit, you can simultaneously complete sections of the worksheet. The worksheet includes a checklist that you can use to track your progress through the toolkit and provides guidance on what information to add to the worksheet.
There are two versions available — a comprehensive, in-depth Excel version that captures details for implementation and a simple, Word version that is a great place to start to create your plan.
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Climate Action Plan Worksheet (Excel File: comprehensive version)
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Climate Action Plan Worksheet (Word File: simple version)
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Examples of Climate Action Goals
Setting Climate Action Goals Helps Prioritize Practices
As you work through this toolkit, many different areas for mitigation and adaptation will be identified. As with any strategic planning process, setting goals and aligning actions to reach those goals helps to prioritize implementation and better manage time and resources.
Example Climate Action Goals for Vineyards & Wineries
Below is a list of example goals to consider for your operation along with examples of related actions/practices and resulting outcomes. These example goals can also be found in the Excel-based Climate Action Worksheet, which can be used as a starting point to personalize for your own operation.
