Sustainability champions: Clif Family Winery gains B Corp rank
By Virginie Boone
ST. HELENA, Calif. — Clif Family Winery and Farm is a certified B Corp, one of only three Napa Valley wineries to earn the distinction. Clif Family President Linzi Gay said it was a natural progression from the winery’s focus on organic food and farming, sustainable production, zero waste, and conserving and restoring its natural resources.
“It’s not a destination, it’s a journey,” Gay said. “The standards are getting more rigorous, and every three years you have to get recertified. It pushes you to keep getting better and look at areas where there is room for improvement.”
The B in B Corp stands for Benefit for All, a nonprofit network of for-profit companies looking to balance purpose and profit that includes some 7,999 companies across 162 industries in 93 countries. Its stated aim is “to harness the power of business, and balancing profit for the purpose of transforming the global economy for the benefit of all people, communities and the planet.”
With the motto, “There is no planet B,” the goal is to work toward a global economy that is inclusive, equitable and regenerative.
Founded in 2004 by Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford, the founders of Clif Bar & Co,. the Clif Family Winery & Farm motto from the beginning has been, “Think like a tree, act like a forest.”
In 2020 Clif Family was awarded the California Green Medal Community Award for its leadership in sustainability and for being a good neighbor and employer. It has run a popular tasting room and Bruschetteria Food Truck in St. Helena since 2012, highlighting plant-forward dishes from its farm.
“One of the fantastic things about it is community, the B Hive,” Gay said. “There are forums specific to regenerative agriculture, specific to eco-packaging. It’s an open community with shared resources and ideas. There’s a lot of collaboration between companies.”
Among the B Corp-inspired changes Clif Family will be making is going 100% capsule-free on all their bottles of wine, so no more foil capsules, making the bottles easier to recycle. The corks from now on will be made from a composite with grapeseed oil as the binding agent rather than plastic so it can be composted. The bottles themselves will be as lightweight as winemaker Laura Barrett can find. Clif Family produces roughly 12,000 cases a year.
Already Napa Green and CCOF-organic certified, Barrett and Gay say because of the existing corporate culture, it didn’t feel like a big lift to pursue B Corp certification.
“We didn’t have to modify business practices to get certified,” Gay said. “It did force us to create systems where we weren’t necessarily documenting what we were doing. The next step is to put more meaningful metrics behind the data to impact change.”
There are fewer than 40 wineries across the world that are members of the B Corp network, and three of them are in the Napa Valley.
Spottswoode Estate Vineyard and Winery in St. Helena was the first Napa Valley winery to achieve B Corp certification. Jaime Araujo’s brand, Trois Noix Wines, is also certified.
“It is among the certifications of which we are very proud,” said Beth Novak, president and CEO of Spottswoode. “I got interested in this because my hero in life is Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, and he helped found this. Patagonia is also B Corp certified.”
Chouinard also inspired Spottswoode’s “1% for the Planet” membership. Since 2007 the winery has donated a minimum of 1% of gross revenues to qualified environmental organizations.
“Being a company that operates for the greater collective good of owners, employees, the environment, our local community and the world community, and more, is crucially important to us,” Novak said. “We are to our core about being caring and responsible stewards of all – our land, people, community, all. So B Corp was and remains very important to us.”
B Corp certification entails operating in accordance with rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency. This includes participation in policies, tools and programs aimed at shifting company behavior, culture and structure, with the goal of creating an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy.
B Corp companies make a commitment to being a long-term collective force for good and undergo assessments and verification every three years.
A Sustainable Development Goals assessment can be done for free, confidentially, for any business that is considering B Corp certification.
Among the companies that are B Corp certified are those involved in compost, sustainable dog food, carbon auditing, sustainable food bowls, food waste, solar energy, aquaculture and even waste-free flip-flops.
In the Napa Valley, Clif Family joins Spottswoode and Troix Nois as B Corp certified wineries. Also in California, O’Neill Vintners and Distillers on the Central Coast is B Corp Certified, as are Cartograph Wines and River Road Family Vineyards and Winery in Sonoma County.
Within the beverage space is a craft distillery based in the Rocky Mountains, a winery in Puget Sound, brewing companies, coffee importers and several wineries, including Bonterra Organic Estates (formerly Fetzer Vineyards) in Mendocino, and A to Z Wineworks, Et Fille, the Morne Wine Co. and Sokol Blosser in Oregon.
“All of these initiatives to improve our natural environment and the way corporations work, they should better their communities and the planet, take care of their employees, treat people and our land, air and water with dignity and respect and in the process rebuild faith in capitalism, which must have a conscience to work well,” Novak said. “Supply side does not work, in my view. We need demand side, back to what we did in building our country after World War II.”
Clif Family’s Gay calls B Corp certification the “most rewarding” thing she’s ever done, with Barrett adding, “It raises the bar and makes you feel good in the process.”
Virginie Boone has written about the Napa Valley for more than a decade. Follow her Instagram @virginieboone or visit virginieboone.com
How interesting! Great job, Clif family! I hope many more wineries will strive for this distinctive honor.
Glad to know!