“Giving exposure to our sustainability actions is not just a duty towards our members and consumers. We believe our approach can be of inspiration to adopt behaviours that are as righteous as possible towards a Planet for the future generations. The recent phenomena to have hit the region of Emilia-Romagna give pause for thought and the responsibility to tackle them belongs to everyone.”
It is with the words of the President, Carlo Dalmonte, that the CAVIRO GROUP presents the fourth edition of the Sustainability Report.
The cover page of the 2022 Report is the new Manifesto of the Group “Il cerchio della vite – The circle of the vine”, summarising the cooperative’s model of perfect circularity, in which the grape from the vineyard is transformed into wine, through a process in which production waste finds new value instead of being discarded, and returns to the vineyard, as fertiliser.
Each year the Group processes 624,000 tons of waste: over 99% of this finds new life and only 0.1% of this is sent for disposal. With that 99%, CAVIRO demonstrates that it knows how to build concrete projects, outlined in the Sustainability Report, but aims to concentrate on the remaining 1% – THE 1% CHANCE – that represents an opportunity: the leap to improvement and progress, the push to getting busy, to “rolling up our sleeves”, filled by a sentiment of urgency and aware that there is no more time waste, working on projects in which innovation and research are necessary tools for delivering the Planet into the hands of those who will come after us.
The Group – which represents the largest winery in Italy, with 11,650 members, 27 wine cellars in 7 regions of Italy, 37,300 hectares planted with vines, 600 thousand tons of grapes produced (8.5% of Italian grapes) – has launched a path for the planning and design of initiatives in the ESG area, in line with long-term objectives set forth by the UN 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.
SimonPietro Felice, General Manager of the CAVIRO Group states: “We exercise a real and tangible action on 9 of the 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), through wide-ranging initiatives and projects. We are particularly proud of the effort on goal number 6 – CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION, to which we respond with the reuse of 40% of process water (with 470 million liters of water recovered) – and on number 15 – LIFE ON LAND – thanks to the many projects in research and development, some of which were implemented in collaboration with the University of Bologna”.
CAVIRO GROUP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2022 – GOVERNANCE
Thanks to the record turnover in the amount of Euro 417 million, the 21/22 business year is to be considered positive for the Group on an overall performance level. The Italian market continues to be the main point of reference, representing 70% of total sales. The wine accounts for 61% of revenues, the alcohol area, must and tartaric acid account for 21%, while the share relative to the energy sector and environment is 18%.
Over 97% of the value generated during the 21/22 business year was distributed to stakeholders, while investments totaled 23.5 million, 64% of which went to the ESG area.
CAVIRO GROUP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2022 – ENVIRONMENT
Operating in harmony with nature means respecting the environmental equilibrium, attempting to preserve it unchanged and, where necessary, to enrich it. The work carried out by CAVIRO originates from the land and protects its resources thanks to the reduction in consumption of water, in climate-altering emissions and through the production of renewable energy sources.
A model able to collect, regenerate and restore goods to the consumer, semi-finished products to the industrial sector, and energy, biofuel and organic fertilisers to the common good, in a new form, with a low environmental impact, with an annual emissions saving calculated in 102,000 tons of CO2.
CAVIRO EXTRA, a subsidiary of the CAVIRO Group, drives the innovation in research and development of noble products obtained from agro-industrial waste. Each year it collects approximately 624,000 tons of must, lees, pomace and wastewater which it transforms into 269,000 tons of products for new uses, raw material for pharmaceutical, food, chemical, industrial companies.
CAVIRO GROUP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2022 – SOCIAL
Being the largest Italian vineyard implies a precise responsibility also toward the community and the territory. First, by guaranteeing food quality and safety, as demonstrated by the approximately 1,150,000 analyses carried out during the year at internal laboratories, then also by operating through the careful selection of the over 4,000 suppliers, 25% of which selected in an ESG outlook, and, last but not least, by protecting work conditions and those of the surrounding environment, factors which are also confirmed by the certifications obtained in an ethical-social scope such as the SA8000 and the Equalitas Cantina Sostenibile.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
CAVIRO’s commitment is embodied also through the many research projects, active or completed in 2022, the work by CAVIRO and prestigious institutions, among these, UNIBO, the University of Bologna, with its numerous departments.
Projects which range from the vines, to the wine, to the biodegradable plastic polymers to return to the vineyard with the fertilisers made from the same by-products from the processing of the grapes.
Here are two examples:
Black to the Future, innovation project co-financed by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), European Union, to develop and test a mix called “CBmix”, capable of enriching the soil with organic material, increasing the capture of CO2, improving the output of plants reducing the negative effect of climate change.
B-PLAS, project financed by Climate-KIC and led by UNIBO, to produce bioplastic from sewage sludge. B-PLAS Demo, in fact is the first experimental system for the production of PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates), an organic and biodegradable plastic polymer, obtained from residual carbon contained in the electricity from the treatment systems of food industry waste.
Read and download the FOURTH EDITION OF THE SUSTAINABILITY REPORT of the CAVIRO Group.
