Riccardo Ricci Curbastro

“Our focus is on consumers and businesses: the former want good wines, but also guarantees, with regard to sustainability, while the latter ask for a tool capable of immediately and easily reflecting their commitment to this fundamental issue. Equalitas – as the name itself implies – ensures that everybody starts off at an equal level and with the same rules, providing a transparent framework of competitive sustainability, within which each business can paint a picture according to its own style and sensitivity, albeit with the strength and certainty of building on solid technical and scientific foundations”.
“Today, Equalitas can bring together, in Italy, a growing number of stakeholders in the wine-growing industry, concerned with sustainability, to effectively implement the many projects launched in this field by businesses, while at the same time representing a guarantee for consumers”.

Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, Chair

Maurizio Martina

“This event” said the Minister, Mr. Martina “accurately reflects the quality achievements of our producers. There is a great team work behind this project, by crucial stakeholders for the Italian wine growing industry, united beneath the keyword sustainability. Equalitas can perfectly interpret the combination of sustainability and competitiveness. There are markets, such as the US market, where sustainability certification can make the difference in consumer choice. Italy, more than any other country, must drive this trend, like at the Milan Expo in 2015. There is a challenge and we need to win it, to build agricultural and agrifood models with a low environmental impact. We are already well ahead in this sector and this project proves that we are on the right path”.

Maurizio Martina, Minister of Agriculture

Luis F. Samper

“Congratulations for this project. My suggestion as a next step is to evaluate how your indicators can be also indicators that contribute to UN´s Sustainable Development Goals. This would be exciting, may attract public funds as governments are committed to work on this, and create a point of differentiation and relevance for your stakeholders. Congratulations again!!

Luis F. Samper

Maria Chiara Ferrarese

“The SOPT standard by EQUALITAS is based on a holistic vision of sustainability capable of satisfying the environmental, social and economic pillars and of certifying sustainable producers, sustainable products and sustainable terroirs”.

Direttore Tecnico
Maria Chiara Ferrarese

Stefano Zanette

“Besides respecting the air, water and soil, this system envisages that productions also deserve to obtain an economic and social certificate. This is the biggest challenge we have undertaken in moving towards terroir certification: we must ensure that, in the future, it can be said that this entire area is a sustainable terroir. Alongside the purely economic balances, which photograph our capacity to produce revenues and jobs, we now consider of fundamental importance an environmental balance (the capacity to maintain the quality and reproducibility of the natural resources) and a social balance: the capacity to ensure human well-being, as well”.

“It’s not just another regulation, but a practice that aims to effectively represent the sustainability of wine, to be applied in Italy, but, above all, to be circulated abroad. After the approval of the Minister Mr. Martina at Vinitaly, we are now working to obtain the institutional recognition of the standard and its accreditation with the large scale retail outlets, internationally as well. In our capacity as a protection association, we are willing to consider the possibility of providing incentives to encourage people to join this certification system”.

Stefano Zanette, Chair of the Protection Association of Prosecco DOC

The Sustainability Consortium

“The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) agrees that Equalitas’ sustainable wine standard meet TSC and retailers’ expectations in order to adopt an official sustainability code for their winegrowers”.

The Sustainability Consortium – March 2017