Our CSR programme has earned level 4 certification!

What a long way we’ve come!

Motivated by the social, environmental and economic aspects of the CSR programme, our winery began steering its actions in this direction back in 2010. A new impetus set in motion by the values that had served as our guide for quite some time by then. Indeed, 20 years ago we had already developed our own practices focusing on product quality assurance and control. Over time, our environmental concerns had a much stronger influence on the way we did things.

The period 2013-2014 was a significant turning point in our journey. We arranged for an independent assessment of our practices in relation to various aspects of corporate social responsibility which included an assessment of the strength of our attachments to the local region.

In 2015, AFNOR Certification (based on the international ISO 26000 standard) came to conduct their first evaluation resulting in our direct entry into the CSR ratings at level 3 (confirmed), just one below level 4, the highest certification.

And now here we are…

In September 2018, a new evaluation of our winery was conducted but which this time also included a number of our stakeholders. This meant that one of our wine partners, our company doctor and an external contractor were additional subjects of the assessment. One of our trade customers in France, the Ventoux-Provence Tourist Information Centre, plus the UMVR (Union of Vallée du Rhône Wineries), which represents the merchants in our region, were also interviewed. The purpose of widening the scope of the evaluation was to measure our actions aimed at improving health and safety, for example, as well as our involvement in the local economy and the strength of our relationships with external third parties.

A certified expert spent a total of four days at our winery carrying out the assessment. He met with our different teams to gauge our progress in terms of making our daily practices more socially responsible and improving our performance measured against indicators linked to the three main pillars of sustainable development: economic, environmental and social.

Through our efforts, we achieved level 4 making our winery one of the few in Vallée du Rhône to be recognised for its exemplary commitment to CSR. An accomplishment we are all immensely proud of!

A matter of synergy

An evaluation of our actions also embraces those we take in view of sharing this programme with our partners. It is an aspect that we hold in high esteem and has been fully incorporated into our CSR strategy.

For example, in 2018, we reviewed our Responsible Purchasing Policy with all of our suppliers (about 130 of them). We also sent out a CSR questionnaire to find out which level our different partners had achieved. The idea was to try and help them improve in certain areas such as food safety (e.g. by improving traceability for consumers). Another part of our role is to show the foundations we have put in place to tackle these matters, in particular on regulatory aspects. Raising awareness, communicating and getting others involved allows us to take action together and make more of a difference and impact.

Our CSR programme encourages every single member of staff to play their part since we go as far as streamlining our approach to recycling in our offices. As Audrey Chaufournier, our Quality, Safety and Environment Manager in charge of coordinating our CSR programme, says: “We believe we are indebted to the magnificent environment that has given us our home.”

And as we move forward, we are far from short on ideas! We plan to continue sowing seeds and motivating others. One project in the pipeline consists of creating an event designed to share our experience with local partners and stakeholders to educate them further on the benefits of CSR. Watch this space…

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