WASP intends to support the improvement on the environmental, social and economic performance of the region's winemaking activities and to promote the recognition of the sustainability performance of the region's wines as an instrument to respond to an existing market failure and to affirm Alentejo brand in internal and external markets.
It also seeks:
In this context, the project had the financial support of the European Union through the Alentejo Regional Operational Programme.
Wine production is totally dependent on natural resources: solar energy, appropriate weather conditions, clean drinking water and healthy soils. These elements should be successfully integrated in an environmentally responsible way. The Alentejo Regional Wine Growing Commission considers that protection and enhancement of these natural resources through sustainable practices performed by a well-trained and highly skilled work force is a priority.
To connect competitiveness with environmental objectives and create opportunities from a sustainability strategy geared to:
WASP is a voluntary initiative organised by the Alentejo Regional Wine Growing Commission that targets the grape and wine producers in Alentejo. Collective sustainability plans are common practice in some world wine regions and have been gaining importance in markets where Alentejo wines have also been gaining position. International and domestic markets are starting to demand the application of sustainability principles.
WASP should in addition provide the domestic Portuguese market with such information is rightfully could demand.
In order to implement WASP, members are first required to perform a self-assessment. The self-assessment consists of a standardised method, aligned with the Programme, to ultimately give a level of performance against an assessment matrix. It is intended that this self-assessment is aligned with the classic method of continuous improvement of a system and therefore, members will be required to conduct a self-assessment every year.
The self-assessment is organised into three distinct sectors (Viticulture; Cellar; Viticulture & Cellar). This distinction between sectors has to do with the type of producers amongst the members of the Alentejo Regional Wine Growing Commission.
The first implementation phase, called Primary Intervention Chapters, was developed for these three general sectors of wine production. In a second implementation phase released in 2018, the evaluation method was adapted to accommodate the increase in Chapters. This started the evaluation and implementation of the Secondary Intervention Chapters for eligible members, according to the WASP rules.
After completion of the self-assessment for the 11 Primary Intervention Chapters, an overall ranking called the ‘General Sustainability Category’ will be established. This ranking will fall within one of four ranges defined for the General Sustainability Category (Pre-Initial, Initial, Intermediate and Developed). The 11 Primary Intervention Chapters were developed with 108 criteria.
The ultimate goal for every WASP member is continuous improvement. This will be achieved through the identification of opportunities for improvement and the development and implementation of annual action plans, in order to achieve in the medium term, the General Sustainability Category of ‘Developed’.
Once the WASP member has reached this Category, the 7 Secondary Intervention Chapters are made available, with 63 Criteria distributed as follow.
Currently, the WASP has 18 Chapters with 171 evaluation criteria.
Once WASP members have established which category they fit into, the Secondary Intervention Chapters will be made available and the same method applied. A third-party validation and recognition of the sustainability system for the WASP member's production process will only proceed when the WASP member achieves the Final Category of Developed in the Secondary Intervention Chapters.
In order to ensure credibility of the project, the results of the self-evaluation for each WASP member will be subjected to an internal audit by the Alentejo Regional Wine Growing Commission. The self-evaluation will serve as an annual individual diagnosis on the sustainable practices of WASP members.
The General Sustainability Category will be established after completion of the self-assessment for the 18 chapters, as shown below (for more information please see the Certification tab).
The ultimate goal for every WASP member will be to work towards their own continuous improvement in order to ultimately reach the General Sustainability Category of ‘Developed’.
Planning for the WASP started in 2013 and the Programme was officially launched to producers in May 2015.
With a strategy based on actions requiring low investment leading to fast returning benefits (low hanging fruits) the 11 Primary Intervention Chapters (PICs) were released. This was done in order to demonstrate the clear benefits of joining and implementing the WASP to Alentejo’s grape and wine producers.
This strategy had almost immediate results, with the Programme gaining 93 members by the end of 2015, a number that has increased every year.
It was with great satisfaction that at the end of 2018, we opened 7 new intervention chapters - Secondary Intervention Chapters (SICs) - to members who had already reached the level required by implementing the 11 PICs.
With a very heterogeneous group of members (having varying land areas, economic and financial capacities, team sizes, objectives or strategies) the method of continuous improvement adopted by the WASP allows members to develop and implement the Programme at their own speed. This is shown in the graphs of the annual evolution of the WASP presented at the bottom of this page.
The CVRA conducted two evaluations of the regional implementation of the WASP.
The CVRA evaluated the implementation and continuous improvement of the 11 Primary Intervention Chapters (PICs) on a regional basis up until 2018. This evaluation was later expanded to include the 7 Secondary Intervention Chapters (SICs) in 2019.
When analysing the PIC evaluations as spider graphs, it appears that they expand and compress with each passing year. This is due to two characteristics of the WASP: the continuous improvement model (which makes the values for each member’s evaluation increase, subsequently “expanding” the graph) and the constant increase in new members (causing the implemented level of sustainability to decrease, subsequently “contracting” the graph).
