Our sustainability story:
1998: Among the first pioneering wineries to establish an environmental management system (EMS) and have it ISO 14001 certified
A project was soon set up to measure our environmental impacts such as water and power use
A strong culture of environmental awareness has developed amongst staff with a commitment to minimise our environmental footprint and to maintain our EMS.
Consequently our rate of water use per tonne is very low; our target water use is less than 2 cubic metres per tonne of grapes produced:
The Mission winery uses virtually no fossil fuels; our energy use is primarily from electricity which is generated from over 60% renewable resources in New Zealand. We continue to lower our energy use with a target of less than 0.2 kWh per litre of wine production:
In an industry benchmarking study of the 2004 year the Mission Winery was the lowest wine industry energy user in New Zealand. We continue to use even less energy in 2012 relative to the rest of the wine industry
2001: Began an EMS project to improve the soil health of our Gimblett Gravels vineyards
2004: began using organic based fertilisers in our vineyards
2009: began a conversion to organic methods in selected vineyards as part of the Organics Project.
