By Deborah Jackson, editor National Liquor News
De Bortoli Wines has been named the ABA100 Winner in Sustainability at the Australian Business Awards 2015.
The award recognises De Bortoli Wines’ achievements in implementing its ‘Re-Engineering Our Future for a Carbon Economy Project’, as part of its goal of becoming a zero waste winery.
Lindsay Gullifer, health, safety and environment manager at De Bortoli Wines, who has pioneered the project, told TheShout the award gives recognition to the efforts of the team that have put in the hard work to get the initiatives up and running.
Since it began in 2011 with a $4.8 million grant from the Australian Federal Government’s Clean Technology Food and Foundries Investment Program, complementing $11 million invested by the De Bortoli family, the project has seen the installation of the largest solar panel array of any Australian winery at that time and a focus on minimising waste, maximising water efficiency and reducing energy consumption in all areas of business.
Based around eight key sustainability initiatives, the project is enabling De Bortoli Wines to reduce its energy footprint, while maintaining the quality of wine being produced.
“The whole process was really about trying to increase the sustainable footprint of the business. Because De Bortoli is a family business, we’re doing things that will ensure the business goes through other generations. That’s a part of our aim of becoming a zero waste winery," Gullifer told TheShout.
“We’ve got a new project on recovering waste material out of water we're working on, but at the moment we’re still in the process of optimising the equipment we’ve installed and seeing if there’s further gains that we can get out of it, so there’s probably at least another 12 months’ worth of work on that.” Gullifer said.
Darren De Bortoli, MD De Bortoli Wines, said the ABA100 Winner in Sustainability award reflected the business’ sustained focus on continued and innovative environmental practices.
“We are committed to improving environmental responsibility to safeguard a future where great wine and a healthy environment can be enjoyed by everyone,” De Bortoli said.