Washington Winegrowers
The Washington Winegrowers Association developed the Sustainable WA Winegrape Standard following two decades of an educational sustainability program.
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The Certification Process
The third-party audit and certification process was awarded to EAGLE Certification Group, whose submission included use of a digital assessment platform - QuantumLeap.
The concept of the growers being able to access a mirror digital assessment to do their own internal inspection first - a self-assessment - ahead of the certification audit, was considered a favourable added-value in the submission.
The Auditor's Next Steps
The auditor reviews the self-assessment responses and comments online ahead of the audit time. This assists the auditor with familiarizing themselves with the vineyard's sustainability program and enables them to provide a special focus on areas in need of improvement.
Vineyards that do not conform to the standard's minimum requirements have the optional opportunity to enhance their overall sustainability system by completing corrective actions - these are reviewed by EAGLE's technical team.
The Standard enables the Certification Body to deliver a number of advantages:
- There is a continual improvement focus within the audit process.
- Certification managers can view and manage the process of the audits.
- Technical reviewers can access the audit from anywhere and complete their reviews.
- Communication is improved using automated emails to flag status changes.
- Audit reports and certificates can be automatically generated by the standard owner.
- Impartiality and integrity behind the certification - it's more than just a piece of paper.
- Vineyards have the opportunity to review their own processes as part of the self-assessment and compare these processes with the auditor perspective of the audit.
- Continual improvement and system maturity can be tracked over time.
- QLBS enables BI and AI for future analysis.
How it works: Self-Assessment
- Washington winegrowers that choose to participate in the certification program first submit their registration online.
- Then they undertake their own self-assessment, assessing themselves against the Standard in preparation for the audit.
- Winegrowers gather and add required evidence documentation to prepare for a successful, value-added audit.
Having completed the self-assessment, growers are better prepared to understand and ensure their conformance to the Standard. To achieve certification, vineyards must meet minimum mandatory requirements, receive a minimum score per section of the Standard and meet an overall minimum percentage of conformance.
