Sustainability Certifications
Our sustainability and organics certifications are important because they demonstrate to consumers that we meet and maintain international best practice standards in this area, and push us to strive for ways to continuously improve our practices.
ISO 14001 Certification
Villa Maria have achieved this internationally recognized environmental management standard, which we use to assess our company’s practices and enhance our environmental performance.
Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ)
We have been a member of Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ) since its inception in 1995. All grapes grown for our wines and our wineries are fully SWNZ accredited.
BioGro
In 2007, we achieved full organic Biogro accreditation for our first vineyard. Currently, 30% (100 hectares) of our company-owned vineyards are BioGro certified.
In February 2009, we were the first major NZ winery to receive BioGro organic certification for our winery and bottling facilities in Auckland, enabling us to trace organic certification for our organic wines from grape to bottle.
Gold Standard Sustainable Tourism Qualmark
This tourism and hospitality certification demonstrates we operate a safe, sustainable and quality visitor experience. Achieving Gold standard places us among some of the top tourism destinations in New Zealand.
Certified Emissions Measurement and Reduction Scheme
CEMARS is an internationally recognised carbon reduction programme focused on measuring and managing an organisation’s carbon footprint. Since we started measuring our carbon emissions in 2009 we have reduced our emissions per bottle by over 35%.
