What does it mean to be a sustainability focused business? Certainly, it includes environmental stewardship, but it’s only a slice of the cake. A holistic approach is important to ensure you are really helping the whole ecosystem.
No system is perfect, but having a framework for success helps us to build towards our ideal version of a sustainable business. To me, this should be a cycle that starts with supporting our team to make good decisions about the way we work and who we work with. This helps us to make high-quality products that customers can feel good about and want to support. Ultimately this means we can put the profits back into supporting our team to make the right decisions. In this way, we all win and keep winning.
Environmental stewardship:
Our vineyard and farm have been farmed organically and biodynamically for over 30 years. Removing herbicides and pesticides from our land. Using natural techniques to help build the soil and biodiversity such as carefully selecting beneficial plants to grow between and around the vineyard.
We also leave three meters of uncultivated land around the property as a wild border for insects and other wildlife to live in. Building wildlife walkways through cultivated areas so they can easily navigate around the land and planting trees through the vineyard to create micro-habitats that also feed the wildlife around. We do most of our vineyard work by hand - reducing the need for heavy machinery and the use of oil/fuel.
In the future we will launch a market garden that will provide fresh organic fruits and vegetables to the local community and the ‘waste’ products will be fed to livestock instead of buying processed feed.
Our free-range ducks and geese will not only help to control the insect population but also naturally fertilise our soil. The pastured pigs will ensure no food is ever wasted from our garden and through careful management they will actually improve the quality of our soil by allowing the pigs to root around and lightly impact the soil before moving them to a new pasture every week. This process effectively kick-starts the regeneration and succession of the land.
Moving away from mono-culture and into a vibrant, and correctly scaled farm will help to bring balance to our land and ensure it is fertile for generations to come.
Social responsibility:
Everything begins with our team. Whether they are contract workers or full-time employees we want to support them to learn about new ways to work that promote sustainability and ensure they feel secure in their jobs and can provide a good life for their families.
Then we can look to engage with the community around us and provide a point of education and inspiration.
We already work with two schools to train apprentices in our organic regenerative farming style.
Looking ahead, we want to dedicate one market garden bed to produce food for local schools and those who need access to fresh organic vegetables.
Energy and water efficiency:
Shuette is a dry farmed vineyard. All the moisture the vines need comes from the soil. To ensure they have access to this we plant long-rooted plants such as rye between the vines to decompact the soil and provide airgaps for water drainage when the roots have decomposed.
Our energy usage is extremely low with just a few LED strip lights, a wine pump the odd use of our waxing and labelling machines making up the vast majority of it. Despite this, we aim to make our usage even cleaner with the addition of solar panels.
Waste reduction:
This is a really active area for us and we have a number of practices and trials getting started including:
We recycle the vine prunings into garden mulch that is rich in mycelium which helps to boost microbial life in the soil.
We give the wine lees to a local distillery to make spirits with.
Dead vines are burned to capture the carbon and put it back into the soil.
Pumice can be used to create a low ABV Piquette, and then it can be composted.
This is just the tip of the iceberg and we are only just getting started.
Over time we will add more considerations and work to improve our systems.
It's not about being perfect, it's about trying to make better choices and being conscious about how our decisions can make a wider impact.
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