India is the second-most populous country in the world with over 1.3 billion people. With rapid urbanisation, deforestation and acute climate fluctuations, we are witnessing more than half of our water reservoirs running towards exhaustion. The severity of the situation calls for us to act, immediately.
At Sula Vineyards, the topic of water management is a perennial one and conserving these resources responsibly is the top priority. As pioneers in the Indian wine industry, it takes the onus of its business practices and take full responsibility for the environment.
For wineries, where cleaning and sanitation are mission-critical and non-negotiable. The company has always been a step ahead in driving sustainable practices towards water conservation.
On the occasion of World Water Day, it wants to share some of its sustainable practices in the hope that they can inspire and help drive change.
Water is the most vital and constrained resource in the company’s value chain. It requires water in a host of processes including irrigation at vineyards, tank cleaning in the winery, and hospitality services for guests.
Since most of the company’s operations are situated in the drought-prone region of Maharashtra, it is improving its processes and are adopting state-of-the-art technology to reduce its water consumption.
The company also ensures diligence in its operations to ensure that there is no wastage of water at any of its sites.
At Sula, over 40 million litre of wastewater generated on-site is 100 per cent reused. Its dedicated effluent water treatment plants help it to recycle all of its wastewater and use it for numerous purposes, including irrigation of green areas, flushing in restrooms, etc.
The company has installed drip irrigation in all our vineyards, which have helped it in reducing water consumption in irrigation by approximately 40 per cent as compared to flood irrigation.
In order to ensure continuing operations, it has established in-house rainwater harvesting sites, artificial ponds and check dams, all of which now enables it to avoid using more than 50 million litre of freshwater.
The company reuses water rejected from RO systems, which helps it to avoid consumption of 150 thousand litre of freshwater annually. It is developing a strong water management strategy at its vineyards, which takes into account soil moisture, evaporation rates, and rainfall, to help it to be judicious and scientific in water consumption.
It is in the process of building more infrastructure, such as recharge bores, which will allow it to increase its contribution towards replenishing watersheds.
Through operational excellence, the company drives the collection of every single drop of water, which would otherwise have gone to waste. A great example of this is the collection of water before our Clean-In-Place (CIP) process.
The hot water network at plants typically releases about 300 litre of cold water from the piping before the hot water starts flowing. It has started storing this water and reusing in its processes, which have led to a reduction in freshwater consumption by 3,000-4,000 litre per day.
“We have weaved in a holistic approach in everything we do at Sula Vineyards. We are already one of the most sustainable wineries in the world and are doing more every day. At our production facility, we use every part of the grape, right from the seed for making grape seed oil to using the residue as a manure for our farms. We proudly say, we make wine keeping the future in mind. Sustainability is just not a fad for us but a Sula way of life,” said Karan Vasani, chief winemaker, senior vice-president - vineyard and winery operations, Sula Vineyards.
It is the organisation’s responsibility to undertake effective measures in order to reduce the rate of climate change, as well as conserve natural resources for a better life. It will continue to thrive to conserve and replenish with due diligence as there is no planet B.