From vine to green

About Wakatū Incorporation

Wakatū Incorporation has three branches – Kono (food and beverage), Whenua (land ownership and management) and AuOra (consumer focused, health solutions). The focus of this case study is on Kono – particularly the Tohu Wines brand – the world’s first Māori whānau-owned company based in Te Tauihu.

The business has about 4,000 owners, who descend from the customary Māori landowners, the whānau and hapū of the Whakatū, Motueka and Mōhua rohe. It operates on a philosophy of protecting and enhancing their taonga for present and future generations.

With vineyards in Marlborough and Nelson, Tohu has been running since 1998 – starting from humble beginnings and making a few hundred cases, the team now makes upwards of 250,000 cases annually.

Since implementing their Whenua Ora strategy in 2020, the Wakatū team has been working to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy-related emissions.

Wakatū Chief Executive Kerensa Johnston (Ngāti Tama, Ngaruahine and Ngāti Whawhakia) says at the heart of the organisation is the wellbeing and mauri ‘life force’ of whenua and through that, the wellbeing of their people.

“We are looking at sustainability and energy savings through a Te Ao Māori lens. You can fuse those two worlds together and what's really important to us as a Māori organisation is that we're good kaitiaki of the taonga we've been entrusted with – not just for this generation, but for future generations,” says Kerensa.

From the recent New Zealand wine roadmap to net zero it showed that vineyards’ primary source of emissions is diesel, which powers equipment such as tractors, irrigation systems, and frost fans. In 2022, the more than 2,000 vineyards in New Zealand harvested approximately 532,000 t of grapes. For wineries, the main contributors to scope 1 emissions are diesel and LPG used to operate boilers. Overall, vineyards generate about 41 t CO₂e annually, while wineries account for around 14.7 t CO₂e each year excluding scope 3.

Wakatū are at the beginning of their journey and Chief Wine Maker Bruce Taylor says undertaking a more regenerative and organic approach is really important not just environmentally but because the global market demands it.

“In recent years there has been a growing emphasis on adopting a sustainable approach. As the world around us rapidly changes, we have a responsibility, especially as a multi-tiered organisation, to protect our assets and to care for our whenua with a kaitiakitanga mindset for the future,” says Bruce.

“We were dealing with industrial viticulture. Once we know where our emissions are coming from, it's how we minimise them while still making the best wine possible.”

Planning for success

To help set them up on the right path, EECA co-funded an energy transition plan (ETP) for Wakatū, which looks at how energy is used at the winery and their vineyards (the demand profile) and the critical performance parts of their process.

The ETP identified the parts of the winery that produced the highest emissions and energy intensity and how to manage this going forward. The first step was to run through everything within the winery that used energy. That included the pumps, cooling systems, refrigeration compressors and lighting as well as how the winery produces and uses hot water.

“The report shows us the possibilities for change. We are now at the budgeting phase as well as picking off the low hanging fruit in terms of easy to implement and low-cost projects,” says Bruce.

“The challenge across the industry at the moment is that it's a constrained, economic environment. We're really looking for projects which provide bang for buck.”

And these are not short-term targets - like wine matures and gets better with age, creating a more sustainable framework for the winery means future proofing the business.

“It’s important to us and to our owners that we are economically sustainable as well as environmentally sustainable – it’s all about balance. It's a measured and systematic approach that I think is really important.”

This report highlighted other technologies which could do the job as efficiently as Wakatū need to do it, but without the use of fossil fuels.

“It's an independent view on the future, supporting your ambitions by using experts like EECA and others to come in. It’s a support for what we might be asking our boards to invest in.”

Getting started

The team’s first step was to measure energy use and emissions and gather the data. Bruce says measuring was one of the most important steps “Otherwise you can be a bit misguided and head off down the wrong track and waste time, money, and resources and not make an enormous impact.”

“Getting that measurement and the experts to come in and actually look at your whole business and highlight the areas for improvement and where you can actually tweak things within your current business operations – I think that's the way to get real wins to start with.”

Once the potential improvements were identified the team looked at the broader picture in terms of working within budget, time and resource allowances.

Understanding that lowering emissions isn’t going to happen overnight was an important factor to keep the timeline in perspective.

“It doesn't all have to be done straight away. You can't do everything all at once and you have to be sustainable and systematic in your approach. But it's important to start.”

Energy efficient opportunities

The winery’s biggest energy use throughout the year is refrigeration so one of the main opportunities for wineries to increase energy efficiency include improvements in refrigeration systems and the use of heat recovery.

Installing a heat scavenger unit to displace the use of LPG is an efficient way of heating the glycol which in turn heats the wine prior to bottling or for fermentation. “It was a real eye opener for us because it wasn't something we'd really considered as an alternative,” says Bruce.

“It's working all the time to keep our temperatures under control. And temperature control in a winery is, you know, 95% of the battle. We're lost without it.”

And there are wildly different demands during the year as well. During harvest in March and April there's a huge demand on cooling for fermentation and control with cold stabilising tanks.

The ETP also highlighted the vineyard’s use of diesel to power essential equipment such as tractors and frost machines.

“There are not simple renewable solutions for these as the existing technology run from renewables is not economic for us at the moment, but we can see the path for the future.”

There were also economic decisions that were sensible like insulating the pipes that pump warm glycol around the winery, conserving water and installing LED lights rather than the standard metal halide lights.

Bruce points out that nothing in a winery is low cost “it costs you $10,000 to get out of bed and touch any piece of the stainless steel.”

However, these relatively low-cost changes have had a high impact on the business. “LED lighting is much better light to work under and it's a lot cheaper to run, and lagging all the warm glycol lines was a really economical and important change.”

“Part of being sustainable is having a sustainable business right from the ground out there (in the vineyard). It's important that your business sustains itself and makes money so we're there for the future as well,” says Bruce.

Energy efficient and quality production

About 75% of the wine at Wakatū is exported. As part of sustainable wine growing New Zealand, all energy usage, waste production and water use is audited to ensure the organisation is sitting within the guidelines. In order to be accredited, New Zealand wineries need to hit a certain level of compliance.

One big driver for the team is maintaining brand loyalty with their customers. “It's not just our own desires and aspirations in an environmental space, our customers are demanding it, particularly from a country like New Zealand, which has a green image out there in the world.”

This translates into using lighter bottles, and sustainable packaging and shipping practices and there is an expectation that Wakatū are working towards a better future.

Bruce says the organisation is ensuring they don’t get left behind. “As our customers become more environmentally aware, there's an onus on us to be embarking on things like the energy transition plan and doing what we can to minimise emissions and improve efficiencies and make that bottle of wine taste better.”

The future of sustainable winemaking

Kerensa points out that there is still a lot to learn in their energy efficiency work.

“We want to build a community in partnership with like-minded businesses and organisations, so we can all learn and grow together throughout this process.

“When I think about the future of work at Wakatū and Kono, I'm hopeful we can make meaningful contributions. This mahi is critical because it's about collaboration and collective progress.”

One of the challenges for Wakatū, particularly in the vineyard, is to reconcile their ambitions around using less pesticides and herbicides, whilst reducing emissions as well.

And there's not a very simple answer, says Bruce, “but it's good to highlight them because it does get us thinking about how we have that cake and eat it.

“It's up to us how we engage with this and decide what we implement immediately. We need to identify our short-term wins, set medium goals, and focus won our long-term ambitions, which include reducing emissions to the lowest possible levels,” says Bruce.

Te Pae Tawhiti – the 500-year generational plan

Wakatū is involved in the lives of whanau whanui, the wider community, and business development. The key principles of their 500-year intergenerational plan ‘Te Pae Tawhiti’ are embedded in all activities across the organisation. The plan focuses on five goals – whānau (people), pūtea (building value), ngākau hihiko (agility and innovation), papa whenua (preserving whenua and taonga), and taiao (whenua ora and tangata ora).

“Part of this mahi is reconnecting with our ancestral knowledge, different growing techniques, how to observe and listen to the environment in ways we haven't practiced for some time. We're hopeful that as we deepen our understanding of these techniques, they will be integrated into our Tohu operations,” says Kerensa.

“Our aspiration is to achieve our long-term goals, and we're all focused on demonstrating the steps toward that vitality. “It's been challenging, but also incredibly exciting as it aligns with our intergenerational vision. We are here to pave the way for the generations to come.”