Cape Jaffa Wines :: Cape Jaffa plans to green Australia, one wine bottle at a time
Cape Jaffa plans to green Australia, one wine bottle at a time
Cape Jaffa Wines establishes Greening Australia environmental fund and makes its first steps toward carbon neutrality
MOUNT BENSON – 5 March 2009: Mount Benson’s founding winery and first fully-certified biodynamic winery on the Limestone Coast Cape Jaffa Wines (www.capejaffawines.com.au) has today pledged $2000 to an environmental fund to be administered jointly by the winery and Greening Australia.
The environmental fund was established in November 2008 from which date Cape Jaffa Wines has donated a portion of sales from each bottle sold of its La Lune, Cape Jaffa and Brocks Reef wines throughout Australia. Today’s pledge is the result of funds raised from 1 November 2008 through to 31 January 2009, and each quarter monies raised will be added to the fund with the aim being to finance local revegetation projects across the Limestone Coast region. The first milestone for the partnership will be to fund a conservation action plan (CAP) for the region between Ngarkat and the Coorong, Australia’s world-famous lagoon ecosystem in South Australia’s South East. It is hoped that on-ground revegetation projects undertaken as part of the CAP will also deliver a carbon biosequestration outcome long term for the medium-sized winery.
Already Cape Jaffa Wines has planted two hectares of land at its Mount Benson vineyards to a developing native woodlot and seed orchard for use by Greening Australia in the local area. Plans to partially fund a Greening Australia local native vegetation guide for the South East region is also a goal that Cape Jaffa hopes to achieve with the establishment of this fund.
“We decided to partner up with Greening Australia because they offer a number of ways that we can contribute to improving our local community while also offsetting our greenhouse gas emissions,” says Derek Hooper, general manager of Cape Jaffa Wines. “We were always hoping we might be able to achieve the long-term goal of carbon neutrality by giving back to our immediate environment.”
This partnership follows the compilation of a greenhouse gas inventory for Cape Jaffa Wines with the assistance of the Netbalance Foundation in 2008 to ascertain the emissions incurred through the daily running of its biodynamic vineyard, organic winery, cellar door sales and administration building, as well as the full biodynamic certification of its vineyard in vintage 2008.
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