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  • Water & Solid Waste | CSWAClimateSmart

    IMPLEMENT: WINERY WATER & SOLID WASTE Conserving Water in the Winery Contributes to Adaptation and Mitigation California vintners recognize the need to conserve water and improve efficiency to ensure the future availability of quality water – for agriculture, communities, and the environment. Increased droughts expected with climate change will create more pressure on wineries to conserve water. Reducing water used in the winemaking, cleaning and sanitation processes begins with identifying opportunities for efficiency improvements through a water assessment and comprehensive water management program. Being climate smart in the winery to maximize water use efficiency reduces GHG emissions by using less energy to pump, heat and move water. Effective Solid Waste Management Can Reduce a Winery’s Carbon Footprint Reducing and recycling solid waste helps conserve natural resources, reduce greenhouse gases and decrease costs for businesses. Monitoring and reducing solid waste can have a significant impact on a winery's overall carbon footprint by reducing both the energy required to create new items from raw materials and the emissions associated with sending items to landfill. Reducing, reusing, and recycling materials provides greenhouse gas emissions reductions and other benefits through: Reducing methane emissions by reducing organic material sent to landfill. Repurposing organic material to increase soil health. Recycling materials and reducing the energy (and associated GHGs) needed to create a new product from raw materials. A Climate Smart Approach to Winery Water & Solid Waste Promotes a Circular Supply Chain A climate smart approach for both winery water and solid waste aims to create a circular supply chain by implementing the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. A circular supply chain attempts to eliminate waste and continually use resources. Below are some examples of how winery water and solid waste can be managed with reducing, reusing and recycling in mind. Reduce: Water: Conserve water (e.g., monitor and measure, address hot spots such as sanitation, seek vendors who use less water in the manufacturing of the products you purchase). Solid Waste: Reduce consumption and/or explore alternative products of materials used in the winery (such as lighter weight glass) and work with vendors to reduce the packaging used for winery materials. Reuse: Water: Hot water used to clean barrels can be filtered and re-used several times, drastically reducing overall water usage for this practice. Solid Waste: Compost food, pomace, lees and cardboard – doing so can divert 50% or more of winery’s solid waste stream. Work with vendors to take back packaging used to deliver materials. Cardboard case boxes used in the winery can be broken down carefully and reused up to five times for rebottling and moving wine back into the tasting room, which also results in cost savings. Recycle: Water: Process water from the winery that is treated properly can be used for irrigation in vineyards and winery landscaping or alternatively discharge it on land to recharge the local aquifer. Solid Waste: Collect and recycle single-use plastics (e.g., pallet wrap). Once all reuse options have been exhausted for non-compostable items such as paper and glass products, recycle these items using local recycling facilities. Resources: Solid Waste - Implementation Guide : Provides details on how to conduct a solid waste audit and how to reduce, reuse and recycle winery materials such as glass, cardboard, pallets, corks, plastic, metal, food waste, etc. Winery Water - Implementation Guide : Provides details on creating a water conservation management program to conserve water throughout the winery operations.

  • Implement | Climate Action Toolkit

    STEP 3: IMPLEMENT Guidance, Resources and Tips for Climate Smart Practice Adoption Once you have identified your climate action goals in Step 2: Assess & Plan, you can find information about how to implement specific climate smart practices in this section. Either navigate directly to the topics and practices identified in your climate action plan or browse topics to learn more about why those practices are important for building climate resiliency and what steps and resources are needed for implementation. Navigate to Implementation Guides Below or via the Navigation Bar Navigate directly to relevant topics and practices using the list below or by using the menu at the top of the page. Helpful information on practices that are included in your climate action plan is organized by Vineyard , Winery or Supply Chain.   Vineyard Practices: Viticulture Adaptation Soil Health & Carbon Sequestration Drought Resiliency & Irrigation Energy Efficiency & Renewables Winery Practices: Energy Efficiency & Renewables Packaging Water & Solid Waste Supply Chain Practices (Vineyard & Winery): Sustainable Purchasing & Suppliers Vehicles & Transportation Implementation Guides Provide Detailed How-To Information and Cost Share Opportunities Each climate smart practice in this toolkit has an accompanying implementation guide. These guides provide detailed information and concrete steps to carry out the climate smart practice along with resources and tools to assist with implementation. Cost-share and incentives may be available through governmental and non-governmental organizations to reduce the financial burden of certain practices; therefore, the end of each guide contains a Cost-Share Opportunities section with available assistance and funding opportunities. A list of the implementation guides can also be found on the Resources page.

  • Soil Health & Carbon Sequestration | Climate Action Toolkit

    IMPLEMENT: SOIL HEALTH & CARBON SEQUESTRATION Healthy Soils are Essential for Vineyard Adaptation and Mitigation Maintaining and enhancing soil health is one of the most effective strategies for adapting to climate change impacts and addressing mitigation in a vineyard. Adaptation : Healthy soils can help address drought, excess precipitation and extreme heat. Management practices that increase organic matter, enhance soil structure, and reduce soil disturbance, especially during high rainfall events, can improve water availability and promote water storage and infiltration. Mitigation : Healthy soils sequester and store more atmospheric carbon. Soil amendments - including compost, biochar, and mulch - can help increase and retain soil organic carbon, and cover crops can also increase soil organic carbon. An added benefit to these climate smart practices is increased soil fertility, which improves plant health and resiliency to pests and disease pressure. The many benefits to healthy soils are the key reason it is an important part of any sustainable, regenerative, organic or biodynamic winegrowing approach. Priority Practices Quick Links: Optimizing Nitrogen Cover Crops Soil Amendments Reduced Tillage Non-Crop Vegetation & Carbon Carbon Sequestration: The capture and long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) in plant material and soils. Plants are considered a “sink” for CO2 because they uptake CO2 during photosynthesis and store it in plant tissue such as leaves, wood, and roots. The burning of vines can release some of this carbon back into the atmosphere. Chipping and low smoke burning techniques used to produce biochar can significantly reduce these carbon loses. Optimizing Nitrogen is Vital to Reducing Vineyard GHG Emissions An important source of vineyard GHG emissions is the use of nitrogen fertilizers. When any nitrogen is added to soil, some of the applied nitrogen can be converted to N2 O. This can happen to any nitrogen-containing additive including synthetic fertilizers (e.g. nitrate and ammonium) and organic materials (e.g. green manures and pomace). All N2 O production associated with vineyards results from soil microbes using the nitrogen instead of the vines. Providing just enough nitrogen that vines need and timing nitrogen applications to ensure maximum uptake by roots can decrease N2 O emissions. Optimize Nitrogen Cover Crops are a Powerful Tool for Adaptation and Mitigation Cover crops can buffer the negative effects of extreme weather events — e.g., precipitation and flooding, along with heat waves. The use of cover crops can increase the storage of carbon in vineyard soils and decrease CO2 emissions. Perennial cover crops are most efficient at doing this because of their greater root production. In addition to increasing soil carbon, leguminous cover crops supply nitrogen to the soil, and may be used to decrease applications of synthetic fertilizers. Cover crops also decrease the offsite movement and loss of soil organic matter by erosion and nitrogen by leaching. Cover Crops Soil Amendments Soil Amendments Increase Water Storage Soil amendments such as compost, mulch and biochar can increase soil organic matter, water storage capacity and nutrient cycling. Compost can improve soil structure and increase soil water storage, with the level of impact dependant on the compost characteristics and the number and rate of applications. Mulch is effective as both a soil cover, improving soil water storage, and a means of increasing soil organic matter. Biochar has many positive benefits including on water and nutrient retention, improved soil structure and carbon sequestration. Reduced Tillage Helps with Mitigation and Adaptation The act of tilling soil can consume substantial quantities of fossil fuel. By breaking up soil aggregates, tillage increases soil emissions of CO2 and N2 O by mobilizing carbon and nitrogen, thus allowing microbes to access and consume previously protected organic matter. Each tillage pass causes some loss of soil-sequestered carbon. Decreases in tillage not only limit CO2 emissions but protects against the loss of organic matter through erosion which increases the soils ability to absorb excess precipitation. Reduced Tillage Non-Crop Vegetation Carbon Sequestration Potential Non-crop vegetation in and around vineyards such as buffer strips, hedgerows, natural woodlands, and riparian flora can also contribute to climate mitigation. The carbon stored in these woody long-lived perennial plants and the soil in these areas can represent a large source of sequestered carbon, significantly decreasing overall GHG emissions. Oak woodlands, for example, can store large amounts of above- and below-ground carbon over their lifetime. In addition, these areas can help reduce soil erosion and runoff, which helps in extreme weather events that are increasing due to climate change and increases carbon sequestration potential by keeping soil in place. Non-Crop Vegetation Sustainable, Regenerative, Organic and Biodynamic Farming are Climate Smart Many of the soil health practices included in this toolkit will look familiar to growers who participate in certification programs for sustainable, regenerative, organic or biodynamic winegrape growing. All of these farming approaches include practices to build and maintain soil health, which has a direct impact on the ability of a vineyard to mitigate and adapt to climate change. To learn more about the relationship between sustainable and regenerative winegrowing, see the CSWA Sustainable and Regenerative Winegrowing Handout , which includes a list of regenerative winegrowing principles and examples of practices to help winegrape growers better understand and communicate about the relationship. Resources: Soil Health & Carbon Sequestration Implementation Guide : The guide includes practices and resources for optimizing nitrogen, increasing organic matter, cover crops, carbon sequestration and erosion prevention. Habitat & Biodiversity Implementation Guide : The guide outlines key practices and resources to support implementation of wildlife habitat such as hedgerows, buffer strips and nesting boxes, native woodlands and riparian and aquatic habitats.

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