Sustainability | 13th Street Winery

13^th Street Winery is proud to be a Sustainable Ontario Certified Winery

“At 13th Street Winery, we consider sustainability to be a dynamic, wholistic, and quite often complex approach to interacting with our environment and doing business, which at the same time, represents a diligent commitment to the simple, time honoured agricultural principles of responsible stewardship of all that is entrusted to our care.” Doug Whitty, President – 13^th Street Winery & Whitty Farms

“Ontario Craft Wineries (OCW), together with the Grape Growers of Ontario (GGO), created the Sustainable Winemaking Ontario Certified program for Ontario’s grape and wine industry to identify the vineyards and wineries that are environmentally friendly. “ (Ontario Craft Wineries)

Certification is voluntary and involves recording sustainable practices that are verifiable through an annual, independent third-party audit.

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Sustainability certification encompasses:

Environmental Sustainability including water conservation, energy efficiencies, recycling, reducing and reusing
Economic Sustainability incorporating the production of VQA Ontario wines and local material sourcing
Community Sustainability including community leadership, social responsibility and being a good neighbour

Sustainable Ontario Certified Wineries and Sustainable Ontario Certified Wines are easily identified by the green leaf icon.

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13^th Street Winery is committed to Environmental, Economic and Community based sustainability through continuing to implement and refine our operation and management practices within all vineyard and winery activities.

Some specific examples of technologies and best management practices we have implemented include:

Installation of EV charging station
A geothermal system for heating and cooling to reduce energy consumption and output
A rainwater collection system capable of storing 30,000L to irrigate the property landscape
An on-site wetland treatment centre in order to filter our winery wastewater
An Environmental Farm Plan reviewed and certified by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)
Repurposing of an old barn as a roosting structure for migratory birds that feed on vineyard damaging insects
A single-stream waste and recycling program that are specific to our winery waste
Viticultural decisions that limit soil compaction and fuel consumption
Applying drought-tolerant landscaping decisions in order to reduce water consumption
Implemented automatic lighting and photocell technologies
The Expression Project – A portion of the proceeds from the sale of our Expression Series wines will be used to support young Canadian artists including annual bursary in partnership with OCAD U, Brock University and the Art Gallery of Ottawa/U of Ottawa.

Some of our Sustainability Objectives for 2023 include:

Reducing both fuel consumption and soil compaction within the vineyard through additional investment of vineyard equipment capable of conducting multiple jobs with a single pass
Continuing to conduct annual waste, water, energy and supply-chain audits to look for opportunities to reduce excess as well as invest in technologies to improve production efficiencies
Investing more time in educating both our team and our customer base on the importance of sustainable business practises – It is a dynamic and ever-changing process! Always something more to learn and improve on
Lobbying for new policies and strict regulations regarding sustainable practises and regulations for our industry

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