To certify for not to certify?

Yesterday I attended a meeting at the Wine Institute in San Francisco where a committee of very talented people, from both the wine making and grape growing sides of the industry, gathered to continue their development of a certification program to be used by the industry to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.  It is an admirable and very challenging process.  Much too complex to discuss in a brief space like this but it does provide me an opportunity to make a few comments about certification.

Why certify something?  Unfortunately, it is because people don’t believe the claims made by others.  In the case of sustainable farming, consumers are not willing to take the word of growers that they are good stewards of the land.  One way around this problem is to get on independent group that people trust verify these claims.  This is where certification comes in.  However, it is very difficult to develop a credible certification program so there needs to be a very good reason to create one.

Lodi winegrape growers have long been committed to practicing sustainble farming.  Along the way they developed a self-assessment workbook, the Lodi Winegrower’s Workbook, which helps them increase their level of sustainability.  The workbook proved so successful that it has been used as a model for the wine industries in California, New York, and Washington State.

To be sustainable, a grower must be successful in selling their winegrapes and wine and at profitable price.  The Lodi growers felt it might be possible to add value to their winegrapes and wine by telling consumers that they were produced using sustainable practices.  Now I come back to my question ‘To certify or not to certify?’  Unfortunately, as I already mentioned, consumers do not believe growers when they say they are using sustainable practices.  To solve this problem the Lodi growers decided to develop a third party certification program to add credibility to their claims, the Lodi Rules for Sustainable Winegrowing.  It is a very impressive program and in 2008, its 4th year, Lodi growers certified over 10,000 acres of vineyards and six wineries are selling nineteen different wines bearing the Lodi Rules logo.

Sustainability is a complex topic and lots of things are happening in this arena.  Over time I will use this space to discuss some of the more interesting issues and hopefully get some interesting and fun dialogue going with some of you.

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