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Sonoma County Winegrowers Expand Sustainability Certification Options to Include Fish Friendly Farming

The Fish Friendly Farming (FFF) Environmental Certification Program is now an accepted option under the region’s globally recognized Sonoma County Sustainable Program.  Since committing to become the nation’s first 100 percent certified sustainable wine region by 2019, the Sonoma County Winegrowers, which started the Sonoma County Sustainable Program in 2014, have created a groundbreaking sustainability program to help ensure its grape growers continue to farm for generations to come.

“I am very excited that Fish Friendly Farming will now be accepted under our Sonoma County Sustainable initiative,” said Karissa Kruse, President of Sonoma County Winegrowers. “This is another example of our ongoing commitment to build the strongest sustainability program possible, while also giving our growers another certification option that still maintains the strict standards we require to become Sonoma County Sustainable,” she added.

The addition of Fish Friendly Farming is the result of a year and half of collaboration between the two organizations to enrich the FFF sustainability program to meet the requirements of Sonoma County’s sustainability program. Sonoma County Winegrowers’ comprehensive approach to sustainability was recently recognized with California’s highest environmental honor, the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award (GEELA).

Sonoma County’s sustainability program takes a triple bottom-line approach that focuses on people, planet, profit, as well as an annual audit and third party certification. To meet this criteria, Fish Friendly Farming has expanded its strong environmental focus with new best practices addressing the social equity and business aspects of sustainability. In addition, they now mandate an annual audit. Fish Friendly Farming will now require all their members, including those outside of Sonoma County, to comply with these new additions in order to remain certified Fish Friendly Farming.

With the addition of Fish Friendly Farming, Sonoma County’s grape growers now have four sustainability programs to select from that have been reviewed and vetted by environmental policy advocates, wine industry leaders and other stakeholders. They include California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, Fish Friendly Farming, Lodi Rules and SIP (Sustainability in Practice).